Thursday, November 29, 2012

Prepare the Way of the King

Dr. Scott Hahn

Dr. Scott Hahn is one of the most eminent Catholic theologians in our country today. Discover what scholars now know about the shepherds, the mysterious Magi, and King Herod. Your Advent journey will take on new meaning as you prepare your heart for the birth of our Lord. This illuminating presentation is sure to help you grow in appreciation of the greatest gift ever given to mankind - Jesus Christ.

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Taken from: http://www.lighthousecatholicmedia.org/store/title/prepare-the-way-of-the-king

Other Recommended Titles:

Thursday, November 15, 2012

From the Foundation of the World (TBT version)

Curtis Martin

Curtis Martin - founder of the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) and popular Catholic writer, speaker, and radio/TV host - speaks to thousands of college students about the heart of the Christian call.

Featured as the October edition of Truth be Told!

Available for purchase on the store on November 1st. To get it sooner, sign up now!

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Taken from: http://www.lighthousecatholicmedia.org/store/title/from-the-foundation-of-the-world-tbt-version

Other Recommended Titles:

Jesus Is... (TBT version)

Fr. Michael Schmitz

Suffering (TBT version)

Fr. Damian Ference

Why Do Women Do That? (TBT Version)

Lisa Cotter

Our Lives Change When Our Habits Change

Matthew Kelly

From Love, By Love, For Love (TBT Version)

Fr. Michael Schmitz

A Journey Through Advent: Reflections on the Sunday Advent Readings

Fr. Robert Barron

The Year of Faith

Dr. Michael Barber

Light of the World

Pope Benedict XVI

Unlocking the Book of Revelation

Dr. Michael Barber

Lectio Divina (TBT Version)

Mark Hart

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

O Israel, how vast is the house of God, how broad the scope of his dominion

Baruch
Chapter 3

1: "LORD Almighty, God of Israel, afflicted souls and dismayed spirits call to you.
2: Hear, O LORD, for you are a God of mercy; and have mercy on us, who have sinned against you:
3: for you are enthroned forever, while we are perishing forever.
4: LORD Almighty, God of Israel, hear the prayer of Israel's few, the sons of those who sinned against you; they did not heed the voice of the LORD, their God, and the evils cling to us.
5: Remember at this time not the misdeeds of our fathers, but your own hand and name:
6: for you are the LORD our God; and you, O LORD, we will praise!
7: For this, you put into our hearts the fear of you: that we may call upon your name, and praise you in our captivity, when we have removed from our hearts all the wickedness of our fathers who sinned against you.
8: Behold us today in our captivity, where you scattered us, a reproach, a curse, and a requital for all the misdeeds of our fathers, who withdrew from the LORD, our God."
9: Hear, O Israel, the commandments of life: listen, and know prudence!
10: How is it, Israel, that you are in the land of your foes, grown old in a foreign land, Defiled with the dead,
11: accounted with those destined for the nether world?
12: You have forsaken the fountain of wisdom!
13: Had you walked in the way of God, you would have dwelt in enduring peace.
14: Learn where prudence is, where strength, where understanding; That you may know also where are length of days, and life, where light of the eyes, and peace.
15: Who has found the place of wisdom, who has entered into her treasuries?
16: Where are the rulers of the nations, they who lorded it over the wild beasts of the earth,
17: and made sport of the birds of the heavens: They who heaped up the silver and the gold in which men trust; of whose possessions there was no end?
18: They schemed anxiously for money, but there is no trace of their work:
19: They have vanished down into the nether world, and others have risen up in their stead.
20: Later generations have seen the light, have dwelt in the land, But the way to understanding they have not known,
21: they have not perceived her paths, or reached her; their offspring were far from the way to her.
22: ¹ She has not been heard of in Canaan, nor seen in Teman.
23: The sons of Hagar who seek knowledge on earth, the merchants of Midian and Teman, the phrasemakers seeking knowledge, These have not known the way to wisdom, nor have they her paths in mind.
24: ² O Israel, how vast is the house of God, how broad the scope of his dominion:
25: Vast and endless, high and immeasurable!
26: In it were born the giants, renowned at the first, stalwarts, skilled in war.
27: Not these did God choose, nor did he give them the way of understanding;
28: They perished for lack of prudence, perished through their folly.
29: Who has gone up to the heavens and taken her, or brought her down from the clouds?
30: Who has crossed the sea and found her, bearing her away rather than choice gold?
31: None knows the way to her, nor has any understood her paths.
32: Yet he who knows all things knows her; he has probed her by his knowledge-- He who established the earth for all time, and filled it with four-footed beasts;
33: He who dismisses the light, and it departs, calls it, and it obeys him trembling;
34: Before whom the stars at their posts shine and rejoice;
35: When he calls them, they answer, "Here we are!" shining with joy for their Maker.
36: Such is our God; no other is to be compared to him:
37: He has traced out all the way of understanding, and has given her to Jacob, his servant, to Israel, his beloved son.
38: Since then she has appeared on earth, and moved among men.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Persian Influence on Greek Thought

[AMAIC: Or is it rather exilic Jewish Wisdom (appropriated by the Greeks) influencing Persian thought?]

Taken from: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/greece-iii

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The idea of Iranian origins of Greek philosophy had a legendary aura, either by declaring that Pythagoras had been Zoroaster’s pupil in Babylon, or by writing, as did Clement of Alexandria, that Heraclitus had drawn on “the barbarian philosophy.”

GREECE
iii. PERSIAN INFLUENCE ON GREEK THOUGHT

IRAN AND GREEK PHILOSOPHY

The idea of oriental, and especially Iranian, origins of Greek philosophy was endowed by antiquity with a legendary aura, either by declaring that Pythagoras had been Zoroaster’s pupil in Babylon (a city where neither of them had probably ever been), or by writing, as did Clement of Alexandria (Clement of Alexandria, 5.9.4), that Heraclitus had drawn on “the barbarian philosophy,” an expression by which, in view of the proximity of Ephesus to the Persian empire, he must have meant primarily the Iranian doctrines.

The problem, studied seriously since the beginning of the 19th century, has often been negatively solved by the great historians of Greek philosophy; but it seems, nevertheless, repeatedly to rise anew like the Phoenix from its ashes, as though the temptation to compare the two traditions and discover a bond of interdependence between them periodically became irresistible.

Pherecydes of Syros was one of the first Greek prose writers and may be considered, as the author of a theogony-cosmogony, to have been a precursor of the Ionian philosophers. He told of the marriage of Zās and Chthoniē. Zās, genitive Zantos, is a conflation of Zeus with the Luvian god Šanta, which points to a region in western Asia Minor from which Pherecydes’ father Babys or Babis originated (West, p. 243). A third god in Pherecydes’s narrative was said to have produced from his own seed, fire, wind, and water; he is called in some sources Kronos, in others Chronos. Both gods were later identified, but we do not know which of the two Pherecydes meant. If he meant Chronos, the question arises of a borrowing from Iran. Zurvan, mentioned as a minor deity in the Avesta (see Zaehner, p. 57; Gray, Foundations, p. 124), was ignored by Zarathushtra, perhaps on purpose, as Mithra was also omitted. Anyhow, Zurvan is attested in Elamite tablets (509-494 B.C.E.) in the name Izrutukma (i.e., *Zru[va]taukma “descended from Zurvan”; see Schwartz, p. 687). The myth of his giving birth to Ohrmazd and Ahriman as recounted by Eznik Kołb in the 5th century (q.v.; see Zaehner, pp. 60-61) and not attested, indirectly before Eudemus of Rhodes (4th century) may, however, have had Indo-Iranian roots, for in India Prajāpati, connected with time, offered sacrifice, like Zurvan in Iran, in order to get a progeny and, just like him, doubted once about the efficacy of his ritual. Pherecydes may therefore, if he wrote about Chronos, have borrowed him from the Magi who, perhaps under the threat of Cyrus, had emigrated to Asia Minor.

Anaximander, according to Hippolytus’ evidence (Refutatio omnium haeresium 1.6), taught that the spheres of the heavenly bodies followed one another in this order, starting from the earth: the stars, the moon, and the sun. The Avesta (Hādoxt nask 2.15; Yt. 12.9 ff.) teaches that the souls of the dead reach paradise through three intermediate stages: humata (good thoughts), huxta (good words), and huuaršta (good deeds). Now, according to the Pahlavi books (e.g., Mēnōg ī xrad 57.13), each of these stages is respectively identified with the place of the stars, the moon, and the sun. It is obvious that the stars, the moon, and the sun follow each other in the order of increasing light, and this progression is completed in a fourth and final stage, which is the destination point of the soul’s journey; one of the Pahlavi names of Paradise is, in fact, anaγrān “beginningless (lights)” (Frahang ī pahlavīk 28). To each stage there corresponds a category of living beings: to the stars, the plants; to the moon, the animals; to the sun, man; to the beginningless lights, the gods or God. The hierarchy between these beings is obvious. So we can explain, through Iran and by means of an organic body of beliefs, Anaximander’s doctrine on the spheres of the stars, the moon, and the sun (see also Panaino, pp. 205-26).

Everything that exists comes, according to Anaxi-menes (Diels, I, p. 22) from a single substance, aēr, which notably means wind. In Iran it is said in the Dēnkart (278.14) that “He who quickens the world and is the life of living things is Wāy, etc.” The existence of a great god Vayu, already Indo-Iranian, is warranted by similar testimonies in the Rig Veda (4.46 etc.).

Anaximenes’ explanation of eclipses as being caused by dark bodies has its counterpart in Dāmād nask, in Šāyest nē šāyest (12.5). These dark sun and dark moon are not mentioned in the Avesta, but, as writes West (p. 108), “One would not expect to find a theory of eclipses in the Avesta,” at least not in the extant, liturgical part of it.

The question of an Iranian origin of Heraclitus’s doctrines was raised by Friedrich Daniel Schleiermacher, whose work as well as that of his successors Friedrich Creuzer, August Gladisch, etc., have been reviewed by Martin Lutchfield West (pp. 166 ff.). There are several fragments which expound Heraclitus’s reflections on fire. “This cosmic order, which is the same for all, was not made by any of the gods or of mankind, but was ever and is and shall be ever-living fire, kindled in measure and quenched in measure” (Fr. 29); “the transformations of fire: first sea, and of sea, half is earth, half fiery water spout” (Fr. 32); “all things are counterparts of fire, and fire of all things, as goods of gold and gold of goods” (Fr. 28). According to Heraclitus, “fire lives the death of the earth, and air lives the death of fire, water lives the death of air, and earth that of water” (Fr. 76). Another fragment names lightning: “The thunder-bolt steers all things” (Fr. 64). And another one says that fire is to judge all things at the end of the world (Fr. 72).

In the Gāθās the role of fire is fundamental. Twice Zarathushtra calls upon “the fire of Ahura Mazdā,” either to make offerings to it (Y. 43.9) or to acknowledge its protection (Y. 46.7). In all the other passages, fire is an instrument of ordeal. Ordeal is found only once in the Gāθās (Y. 32.7) as an actual practice, but several times there is reference to a future ordeal which is to be made by means of fire to separate the good from the wicked. Here fire is the instrument of truth or justice (aṧa, q.v.), from which it derives its power (hence the epithet aṧa-aojah). This connection of fire with aṧa is constant, e.g, “I wish to think, insofar as I am able, of making unto thy fire (O Ahura Mazdā!) the offering of veneration for Aṧa” (Y. 43). And when each of the elements are placed under the protection of the Aməṧa Spəntas, who surround Ahura Mazdā (qq.v.), Aṧa is the patron of fire.

There was also a doctrine of cosmic fire. Fire penetrated all the six stages of creation. Although this is not attested before Zādspram’s Wīzīdagīhā (1.25), its antiquity is proven by the appearance, both in Iran and in India, of two equivalent classifications, one in three fires, one in five.

Parallel to the relationship of fire with Aṧa is Heraclitus’s doctrine that fire is ruled by Dikē “Justice” (not by the Logos as is the case in the Stoic interpretation of Heraclitus). As West writes (p. 137), “the sun’s measures are maintained, through the Erinyes, by Dikē, and since the sun’s measures cannot be isolated from the measures of the world at large, it must be possible to say that Dikē governs the whole process.”

Heraclitus’s god watches men the whole time, not only by day. Ahura Mazdā sees all that men do (Y. 31.13) and is not to be deceived (Y. 45.4). He is never asleep and never dulled by narcotics (Vd 19.20). “Heraclitus’ conception of the soul’s history is, from a Greek point of view, novel. It has a deep ‘account’ that increases it-self . . . According to the Pahlavi books [e.g., Mēnōg ī xrad 2.118 ff.], at death, the soul’s good and bad deeds are counted up, and determine its fate” (West, p. 184).

The fravašis (q.v.) are parallel to Heraclitus’s hero-spirits and to the immortals “that live the death of mortals.” “Heraclitus’ novel emphasis on the function of Eris or Polemos in determining the apportionment of the natural world, his conviction that opposition is the essence of the universe has long seemed to comparativists a counterpart of the Zoroastrian doctrine of agelong war between Ahura Mazdā and Aŋra Mainiiu. Heraclitus strikes a prophetic note that has reminded more than one reader of Zoroaster” (West, p. 186).

Pausanias attributed to the Chaldaeans and the Magi an influence on Plato’s teachings. And Aristotle at one time considered Plato the founder of a religion of the Good and therefore a continuator of the work of the ancient prophet (Jaeger, pp. 13 ff.). In the myth of Er, the souls must choose between two paths: on the left is the way to descend from heaven to hell, on the right is the ascent of the souls who rise from the Tartarus up to the stars (Replica 614 CD). The very idea of this ascension was quite new in Greece and must have come from the Zoro-astrian belief in the primeval choice and in the Činuuatō Pərətu (see ČINWAD PUHL) separating the good from the wicked. Plato may have heard of it through Eudo-xus of Cnidus, who was well aware of the doctrines of the Magi. In the myth of the Politic, Plato envisaged the idea of an alternate predominance of a good god and an evil god, an idea he may have learned from the Magi. But he decidedly refused it. In the Timaeus time is given as the mobile image of immobile eternity, maybe a Platonic transposition of the Iranian distinction between “time long autonomous” and “time infinite” (Av. zurvan darəγō.xᵛaδāta- and zurvan akarana-; see Air Wb., cols. 46 696). The Timaeus owed much to Democritus, whose relationship with the teachings of the Magi is well attested. In the Phaedrus, Plato, with reference to Hippocrates, views man as an image of the world, a microcosm, an idea propounded in the Dāmdāt nask, a lost part of the Avesta summarized in the Bundahišn and whose antiquity is proved by the Indo-Iranian myth of a primeval man sacrificed and dismembered to form the different parts of the world (Duchesne Guillemin, 1958, pp. 72 ff.).

Empedocles already shared the microcosm idea, which governed the conception of medicine he had inherited from the Cnidian school, influenced by Iran. He also declared that “the general law is widely extended through the ether of the vast dominion and the immense brightness of the sky,” (Fr. 38), which harks back to Heraclitus and, through him, to Zarathushtra proclaiming the coincidence of Aṧa with the light (Y. 31.7).

The Chaldaic Oracles, despite their fire-cult, probably owe nothing to Iran (contra: des Places, p. 13). Greek mágos, magikós, magía come from Old Persian maguš, but how to trace Iranian elements in Greek magic? The Zoroastrian pseudepigrapha were not written by Hellenized Magi, who may never have existed (R. Beck apud Boyce and Grenet, Zoroastrianism, pp. 491-565).

Three kinds of medicine were distinguished, through spells, the knife, or herbs, both in Iran (Vd. 7.44) and in Greece (Pindar, 3.47-55), not elsewhere; borrowing seems, therefore, plausible, either way (Dumézil, pp. 20 ff.).

Bibliography: Ruhi Muhsen Afnan, Zoroaster’s Influence on Greek Thought, New York, 1965. Joseph Bidez, Eos ou Platon et l’Orient, Brussels, 1945. Joseph Bidez and Franz Cumont, Les mages hellénisés, 2 vols., Paris, 1938; repr. 1973. M. Burkert, Iranisches bei Anaximander, Rheinisches Museum 106, 1963, pp. 97-134. Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 5.9.4. Hermann Diels, ed. and tr., Die fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 3 vols., 1922. Jacques Duchesne Guillemin, The Western Response to Zoroaster, Ratanbai Katrak Lectures for 1956, Oxford, 1958. Idem, “Persische Weisheit in griechischem Gewande?” Harvard Theological Review, April 1956, pp. 115-22. Idem, “Notes on Zervanism in the Light of Zaehner’s Zurvan, with Additional References,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 15, April 1956, pp. 108 ff. Idem, “D’Anaximandre à Empédocle: Contacts gréco-romano,” La Per-sia e il Mondo greco-romano, Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Rome, 1966, pp. 423-31. George Dumézil, Le Roman des Jumeaux, Paris, 1994. Gherardo Gnoli, “Zoroastro nelle fenti classiche,” Studi Urbineti, B Sciense umani e sociali 67, 1995-96, pp. 281-95. Idem, “Zoroastro nelle nestra cultura,” ibid., 68, 1997-98, pp. 205-19. Louis Gray, Foundations of Iranian Religion, Bombay, 1929. Werner Wilhelm Jaeger, “Aristotle’s Praise of Plato,” Classical Quarterly 21, 1927, pp. 13 ff. Wilhelm J. Wolff Koster, Le mythe de Platon, de Zarathoustra et des Chaldéens, Leiden, 1951. Antonio Panaino, “Uranographia Iranica: The Three Heavens in the Zoroastrian Tradition and the Mesopotamian Background,” in Rika Gyselen, ed., Au carrefour des religions: Mélanges offerts à Philippe Gignoux, Res Orientales 7, 1995, pp. 205-26. Pindar, Pythionikai, 3.47-53. Edouard des Places, ed. and tr., Oracles chaldaïques, Paris, 1971. Martin Schwarz, “The Religion of Achaemenian Iran,” in Camb. Hist. Iran II, pp. 664-97. Henrik Willem J. Surig, De betekeris van Logosbij Herakleitos volgens de traditie en de fragmenten, Nijmegen, 1951. Martin Litchfield West, Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient, Oxford, 1971 (to which the present article owes a great deal). Robert Charles Zaehner, Zurvan. A Zoroastian Dilemma, Oxford, 1955.

(Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin)
Originally Published: December 15, 2002
Last Updated: February 23, 2012
This article is available in print.
Vol. XI, Fasc. 3, pp. 319-321

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Cadmus and Parashurama

Posted on June 2, 2012 by Collected Works of Sri Bhakti Ananda Goswami

Cadmus and Parashurama

The entire complex Round of Stories about Cadmus, especially those associated with the slaying of the Spartoi, Europa and the Isle and Cultus of Rhodes and Crete, connect Him to the Story of Parasurama. “By the instructions of Athena, he sowed the dragon’s teeth in the ground, from which there sprang a race of fierce armed men, called the Spartoí (“sown”). By throwing a stone among them, Cadmus caused them to fall upon one another until only five survived, who assisted him to build the Cadmeia or citadel of Thebes, and became the founders of the noblest families of that city.” Details of the Spartoi ‘slain by’ Cadmus reveal them to be the excessively militant relatives of Krishna! These are the same Kshatriyas slain by Parasuram! This site shows a hint of the vast number of stories associated with Parasurama. Cadmus is also the main actor in numerous kingdom and city origin stories.

One has to become familiarized with many of the traditions of both Cadmus and Parasuram to understand the connections. http://forum.santabanta.com/showthread.htm?p=2478969.

When studying History and Theology one must learn to understand the relationship of these to Mythology and the process of the localization of historic memories, metaphysical or theological revelations, archetypes and idealism, and how these all may or may not be related to a particular ‘myth’ or mythic round of stories, or to a mega-myth that encompasses the explanatory story-telling of ages.

Let us use wiki on the Spartoi as a starting place to understand some very important East-West ‘Old World’ religious connections, by inquiring into the identity of the Yadus, the Birth Family of Sri Krishna-Vishnu in His Gita Incarnation, and the dynasty of Kshatriya Kings killed by the ‘Shaktyavesha Avatara’ Parasurama. The general understanding in India today is that the Kshatriyas who survived (because they were spared!) fled outside of Greater India and became the ancestors of the low-class non-Vedic (uncivilized) nations outside of Bharata (Sacred India). But, does this idea actually have any real-world historical basis and what about the 5 survivors that were spared by Parasurama? What about the strange fact that the supposed ‘SUN GOD’ HARI (Krishna) appears in the LUNAR CHANDRA VAMSA DYNASTY OF VEDIC KINGS? What about the strange association of this Dynasty with that of the kings wiped out by Parasurama? To get some insight into the surprising answers these questions we need to inquire into the identity of the SPARTOI!

Who were the ABHIRA relatives of the YADUS? Who were the ‘Hapiru (HEBREW) relatives of the SUBARTU? Why does the c Catholic Bible tell us that the SPARTOI are the decendents of ABRAHAM and the religious BROTHERS of the faithful JEWS? The SPARTOI, SUBARTU and SATRAPAS / KSHATRIYAS were all a ‘Vedic’ warrior CLASS of people who worshiped HARI-VASU / ELI-YAHU / HERU-AUSU. They were Lunar-time festival keepers. The Yadus and other religiously related peoples were all somehow connected with the worship of Ananta Sesa Naga and represented with anguiped iconography.

Let us begin our study of Cadmus-Parasurama from the elements presented below. I will post a new Album with notes for this topic, as I have time and energy.

wiki

Main East-West Road at Laodicea with Mount Cadmus in the Distance

Spartoi in Thebes Cadmus arrived in Thebes, Greece after following a cow at the urging of the oracle at Delphi, who instructed him to find a city wherever the cow should stop. Cadmus, wishing to sacrifice the cow, sent his men to a nearby spring to fetch water. The spring was guarded by a dragon, which slew many of the men before Cadmus killed it with his sword.

According to Apollodorus, the dragon was sacred to Ares. Athena gave Cadmus half of the dragon’s teeth, advising him to sow them. When he did, fierce armed men sprang up from the furrows. Cadmus threw a stone among them because he feared them, and they, thinking that the stone had been thrown by one of the others, fought each other until only five of them remained: Echion, Udeus, Chthonius, Hyperenor and Pelorus. These five helped Cadmus to found the city of Thebes, but Cadmus was forced to be a slave to Ares for one year to atone for killing the dragon. At the end of the year, he was given Harmonia, the daughter of Aphrodite and Ares, to be his wife.

However, Hellanicus writes that only five Spartoi sprang up, omitting the battle between them. In his version, Zeus had to intervene to save Cadmus from the anger of Ares, who wished to kill him. Echion later married Agave, the daughter of Cadmus, and Pentheus their son succeeded Cadmus as king.

The bronze & gold Arkalochori Axe is a second millennium BC Minoan votive double axe excavated by Spyridon Marinatos in 1934 in the Arkalochori cave on Crete which is believed to be part of a religious ritual. It is inscribed with fifteen symbols.

Spartoi in Colchis The other half of the dragon’s teeth were planted by Jason at Colchis. Aeetes, the king of Colchis, was given the teeth by Athena, and forced Jason to sow them in order to win the golden fleece. Like Cadmus, Jason threw a stone among the spartoi to confuse them. The spartoi then began to fight each other over the stone. None survived the battle.

In the Srimad Bhagavatam, the poetic description of the excessively military sons of Kārtavīryārjuna described them as ‘thorns in the side of Mother Earth’. Now visualize the DRAGON’s TEETH SOWN IN THE GROUND! Obviously the SPARTOI as Dragon’s Teeth were like THORNS in the Side of Mother Earth! What about the way that they were destroyed? A Stone was thrown among the Spartoi, causing them to fight with each other until all but 5 were dead. Picture the Curse of the later Family of Sri Krishna, the Yadus! An iron ball (the Stone) embodied the curse, and due to their excessive combativeness, the Yadus got into a brawl and killed each other with reeds grown from the iron filings of the iron ball that embodied the curse. The excessively combative Spartoi killed eachother. Later the excessively combative Yadus killed each other. A stone or iron ball caused the killing. 5 were left. According to both the Eastern and Mediterranean Traditions, these 5 submitted to God and were allowed to establish sacred cities in His honor! They were ancestors of the Lunar Dynasty Incarnation / Descent of Sri Krishna-Balarama.

The Subartu / Spartoi Satrapas/Kshatriyas were Anguiped (Erechtids) from WARKA (Uruk), who worshiped Ananta Sesha Naga. They wore Naga tattoos and were identified with the Naga Dynasty worshipers of Sri Balarama as Ananta Sesha Naga. Anantadeva as Sesha the ‘Serpent of Infinity’ was also the Giant Egyptian Cobra Who held-up the Earth in Mar’s Grove, before Atlas took over the job! He was the Seraphic Nahustan of the Old Testament, the Lord of the lost Jewish City IR-NACHASH, the City of the Mystical Serpent, NAGA-PUR!

In the Greek Bible Septuagint-related Apocryphal Books of the Maccabees it is recorded that the Spartoi are related to the Hebrews (Israelites and Judahites), and that the Greek Spartans (who were Helios worshipers), belonged to Religious Alliances with the faithful Jewish heroes of the ‘Old Testament’ of the Bible!

The Arkalochori Axe has symbols from the famous Phaistos Disc on it. “One of the most famous Minoan votive double axe is the Arkalochori Axe dated in the second millenium B.C. This axe was excavated in the Arkalochori cave on Crete by Spyridon Marinatos. It is notable for being engraved with an inscription of 15 symbols. Some of the symbols may be identified as Linear A characters, while others are reminiscent of those found on the Phaistos Disc. In particular, the “Mohican” glyph (D02), which is the most frequent character of the Phaistos Disc, appears on the axe inscription both in profile and face-on.” Andrea Salimbeti

The important thing to note is that specific elements of the Traditions of the Family / Dynasty of Sri Krishna and that of the Biblical Messianic Royalty, including the Biblical Spartoi, tie them together accross their respective Traditions. A careful reading of the Scriptures of the Vaishnavas and the Jews along with interdisciplinary extra-Biblical evidence proves that the Anguiped Spartoi were related to both the Biblical Jews and the Naga-worshiping Dynasty of Sri Krishna-Balarama.

The most persistent symbol of Cadmus is his Double-bitted Axe. Many scholars associate this Axe with the early Minoan Civilization on Crete. The Europa Cow Epic has elements in common with the Kama Dhenu Story and the Vedic-Puranic ‘Challenge Horse’ Ritual. Cadmus and his 5 Spartoi are associated with the founding of great Sacred Heliopolitan POL / PER / YIR (Sanskrit PUR) Cities and Civilizations. Cadmus is also associated with inter-tribal and inter-linguistic interactions in legendary and historical time.

There, in accordance with the instructions of the Lord of the Yadus, the Supreme Personality, the Yadus performed all auspicious rituals with transcendental devotion and everything else that would strengthen them. Then as destined they lost their intelligence drinking from a large supply of sweet tasting maireya [honey-liquor] the ingredients of which overpowered their minds. Among the heroes bewildered by Krishna’s illusory potency arose a terrible quarrel because they intoxicated of the excessive drinking became arrogant. Infuriated they took up their weapons – their bows, swords, bhalla-arrows [arrows with a particular arrowhead] clubs, lances and spears – and fought against each other on the shore. With flying flags riding chariots, elephants and other carriers – asses, camels, bulls, buffaloes, mules and even humans – they most enraged facing one another attacked with arrows, just like elephants who in the forest attack each other with their tusks. With their enmity aroused in the battle fought Pradyumna ferociously against Sâmba, Akrûra against Bhoja, Aniruddha against Sâtyaki, Subhadra against Sangrâmajit, Sumitra against Suratha and the two Gadas [the brother and a son of Krishna] against each other. Others as well, like Nis’athha, Ulmuka and more lead by Sahasrajit, S’atajit and Bhânu, confronted and killed each other, totally being bewildered by Mukunda (Krishna) and blinded by their intoxication. Completely letting go of their friendship the Kuntis, the Kukuras, the Visarjanas, the Madhus and Arbudas, Vrishnis and Andhakas, the Bhojas, the Sâtvatas, the Dâs’ârhas and the inhabitants of Mâthura and S’ûrasena slaughtered each other. Relatives bewildered killed relatives and friends friends; sons fought with their fathers and their brothers, nephews with uncles, paternal uncles with maternal uncles and well-wishers with well-wishers. Running out of arrows and with their bows broken and missiles used, they took cane stalks [eraka, see 11.1: 22] in their fists. Those stalks held in their fists turned into iron rods as strong as thunder bolts as they attacked their enemies with them, and even though Krishna tried to stop them, they attacked Him as well. Confounded with their minds turned to killing, they mistook Balarâma for an enemy o King and also raised their weapons against Him. The Two [of Balarâma and Krishna] then also most furiously joined the fight o son of the Kurus, and began to kill, using the stalks in Their fists as clubs as They moved about in the fight. In the grip of the curse of the brahmins and with their minds clouded by Krishna’s mâyâ, the anger of their rivalry now led to their destruction, just like a fire of bamboos does with a forest.
Srimad Bhagavatam » Canto 11 Chapter 30 The Disappearance of the Yadu-dynasty

The Genealogy of the dynasties known as Yādava, Mādhava and Vṛṣṇi had their origin from Yadu, Madhu and Vṛṣṇi. There were 5 survivors of the sons of Kārtavīryārjuna.

SB 9.23.27: Of the one thousand sons of Kārtavīryārjuna, only five remained alive after the fight with Paraśurāma. Their names were Jayadhvaja, Śūrasena, Vṛṣabha, Madhu and Ūrjita.

***************CONTEXT: SRIMAD BHAGAVATAM BBT EDITION

Sage Narada Visits the Yadu Princes Krishna and Balarama

SB 9.23.23: The sons of Bhadrasena were known as Durmada and Dhanaka. Dhanaka was the father of Kṛtavīrya and also of Kṛtāgni, Kṛtavarmā and Kṛtaujā.

SB 9.23.24: The son of Kṛtavīrya was Arjuna. He [Kārtavīryārjuna] became the emperor of the entire world, consisting of seven islands, and received mystic power from Dattātreya, the incarnation of the Supreme Personality of Godhead. Thus he obtained the mystic perfections known as asta-siddhi.

SB 9.23.25: No other king in this world could equal Kārtavīryārjuna in sacrifices, charity, austerity, mystic power, education, strength or mercy.

SB 9.23.26: For eighty-five thousand years, Kārtavīryārjuna continuously enjoyed material opulences with full bodily strength and unimpaired memory. In other words, he enjoyed inexhaustible material opulences with his six senses.

SB 9.23.27: Of the one thousand sons of Kārtavīryārjuna, only five remained alive after the fight with Paraśurāma. Their names were Jayadhvaja, Śūrasena, Vṛṣabha, Madhu and Ūrjita.

SB 9.23.28: Jayadhvaja had a son named Tālajańgha, who had one hundred sons. All the kṣatriyas in that dynasty, known as Tālajańgha, were annihilated by the great power received by Mahārāja Sagara from Aurva Ṛṣi.

SB 9.23.29: Of the sons of Tālajańgha, Vītihotra was the eldest. The son of Vītihotra named Madhu had a celebrated son named Vṛṣṇi. Madhu had one hundred sons, of whom Vṛṣṇi was the eldest. The dynasties known as Yādava, Mādhava and Vṛṣṇi had their origin from Yadu, Madhu and Vṛṣṇi.

SB 9.23.30-31: O Mahārāja Parīkṣit, because Yadu, Madhu and Vṛṣṇi each inaugurated a dynasty, their dynasties are known as Yādava, Mādhava and Vṛṣṇi. The son of Yadu named Kroṣṭā had a son named Vṛjinavān. The son of Vṛjinavān was Svāhita; the son of Svāhita, Viṣadgu; the son of Viṣadgu, Citraratha; and the son of Citraratha, Śaśabindu. The greatly fortunate Śaśabindu, who was a great mystic, possessed fourteen opulences and was the owner of fourteen great jewels. Thus he became the emperor of the world.

Gold votive double axe with incised decoration. Neopalatial period. W. 0.05 m. Arkalochori Cave. Monument type : Double axe
Material : Gold
Date : 17th-16th century BC
Archeological Site: Arkalochori

Thursday, November 29, 2012

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Footnotes

Sunday, November 11, 2012

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Thursday, November 1, 2012