Cont. 2
More on "Chimera" in IVC:
About this insertion that I'd made into the previous post:
The "Plato" in the title intrigued me. I found a page in the PDF mentioning "Greek myth" in a subtitle, which section ends up being interesting:
harappa.com/sites/default/files/201311/Frenez%20Vidale%202012%20-%20Harappan%20Chimaeras.pdf
p.5
No comment is necessary I suppose.
Instead, will mention that:
1. the Taoist Long ("dragon") of the Chinese is also a 'chimera' in the general sense that word is used in English today.
BTW, the Taoist Long is NOT imaginary: Longs are Daoist Deities and other Special Beings.
2. Yazhis of Hindu temples and sacred imagery are 'chimera' in this sense too. In several respects, a common kind show some consistency: lion for much of face and body, but snake-like or elephant trunk for a nose/tongue/entire snout (sometimes a triple snakes or elephant trunk form the tongues).
qph.is.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-3c1e48a4791f0dc5190f229afeb3400d?convert_to_webp=true
qph.is.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-ce38fb84a77ea660941caf36d344659d?convert_to_webp=true
Mouth like a trunk here:
media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/05/b0/83/58/aayiram-kaal-mandapam.jpg
Fished out a relative's book on Yazhi illustrations made by one of the famous Hindoo temple/moorti shilpis.
Some other yazhi forms:
- There are also yazhis forms involving sea-like creatures, like the fantastical form of a makara as face but with elephant trunk with decorative peacock/swan tail and still bird legs.
- Lion/tiger with peacock or "decorative" swan tail, sitting on a lion-headed snake.
There's also an illustration in the book that the shilpi made of an elephant swallowing a horse's head. But while the trunk and ear of the elephant is visible, the elephant head looks like a reversed 2 horn *cow* face (i.e. a cow head to a horse body facing in the direction of the now headless elephant). It's like some Escher image at the point where the cow head meets horse head. Sort of like this next albeit-2-animal-version of an elephant and cow in the temple image at
flickr.com/photos/me_ram/5514038980
Hindus have yazhi-like Gods too. E.g. Sarabeshwara (Shiva), Pratyangira Amman, and of course Kamadhenu is often depicted with the head of (human-like) Devi, body of Cow and wings.
What's remarkable is that Hindoo shilpis are so good at studying native Hindoo animals and drawing them for practice, before they then make traditional "ornamental" vaahana versions for the Gods or else depict yazhis as a combination of ornamental versions of various animals. Hindoo artists so talented. :love:
Although yazhis are ubiquitous in Tamizh southern Hindoo temples and may be so in other Hindoo temples, yazhis are also visible in Nepalese Hindu tantra "tangka"* paintings for instance, and this had already made me suspect that yazhis may have once been a common feature to all Hindoos, especially since the yazhi appears to trace to the Veda and IVC too. [I'm not sure one is allowed to say it: but yazhis seem to me to show Hindoos' continuity in their Hindoo sacred imagery from Vedic and IVC times.]
(*IIRC the Buddhists in Tibet ended up using what look like Taoist Longs for their Bauddhified copy of Hindu Tantra Tangka imagery [involving Bauddhified versions of Hindu Gods], because of ancient Chinese Taoist-derived influences in Tibet both from Taoism proper and from Chinese Bauddhified Taoist motifs.)
3. Persians had imagery of
- lion with wings,
- some bearded priest-like male humanoid head with the body of a lion and large wings.
Persians also had an image depicting a goat being bitten by a lion. This last isn't a chimera, consisting of two whole distinct animals, though joined, but it seems to be common imagery. (Since no body part of either animal is actually missing, it doesn't remind me of the one headed cow-horse or cow-elephant in Hindoo sculptures seen in TN.)
4. Subhash Kak in his recent article about Otzi the iceman, mentioned the Gundestrup cauldron as featuring Gajalakshmi: two "elephants" on the side of a human-like head. (Presumably native-science.net/Images/Gundestrup%20Images07.Plate%20E.jpg )
* Interesting is that they should have - what seem to me - lion-like animals, besides "elephant" like ones (though the trunk may be explained as that of an ant-eater. But the Gundestrup creature's "trunk" is not stable enough to be that of the European anteater. But maybe it's just a fantastical creature? Fancy hitting upon a trunk through sheer imagination.)
* I suppose, because the next is a "profile" view, they may explain that it has two horns and is not like an IVC "unicorn":
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/ChaudronDeGundestrup5.jpg
* The lion-like creatures in this next image (complete with what look like manes, but could be dismissed as dragon-headed) look very traditional yazhi-like qua pose:
landschaftsmuseum.de/Bilder/Gundestrup_Platte2-2.jpg
Of course we know that the lion is featured heavily on banners and everything in much of Europe, especially regions that never had lions.
* And I factually confuse the IVC Pashupati seal with the Pashupati-like (with antlers) Gundestrup character.
5. In googling for Gundestrup images, found this:
historum.com/asian-history/70150-aryan-invasion-other-matters-13.html
(Apparently Indians had been bringing the matter up.)
The above link indicates what to google for concerning Persian imagery: "Achaemenid relief".
* "Griffin Lion" of Persians:
c8.alamy.com/comp/D95PPA/ancient-persia-achaemenid-period-530-330-bc-griffin-lion-relief-in-D95PPA.jpg
* Winged bull:
s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/cf/c2/5c/cfc25c279499a59989a2ecde9c6efb1b.jpg
* Winged Iranian feline with goat-like head (horns seem to be distinct from ears)?
easysavings.com.mt/images/shops/isfahan/Logo%20Isfahan.jpg
* "Gold griffin-headed armlet Achaemenid Persian, 5th-4th century BC"
s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/a5/fe/f1/a5fef15170c9416fcec3c4a9fa3e19be.jpg
6. "Animals in Ancient Near Eastern Art"
metmuseum.org/toah/hd/anan/hd_anan.htm
Which figure 66.173 links to this 'chimera' of bull head and upper torso but with body of human, sitting in human posture:
metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/66.173
But that's late 4th to 3rd millennium BCE in Iran.
Yet chimera imagery it is.
(By the way, there are some generally amazing images at
metmuseum.org/toah/hd/anan/hd_anan.htm )
Regardless of whether IVC is allowed to be Vedic and/or its iconography is allowed to be so,
"Elam" (SW Iran) at 4th to 3rd millennia BCE has not been called IE by IE-ists in any sense afaik (but is supposed to have Sumerian connections...),
hence "chimera" type imagery can't be claimed as some IE motif.
More on "Chimera" in IVC:
About this insertion that I'd made into the previous post:
Quote:[For versions of IVC "chimera" iconography that doesn't involve humanoid body parts, here's a famous IVC seal with individual-animal parts identified: harappa.com/content/harappan-chimaeras-%E2%80%98symbolic-hypertexts%E2%80%99-some-thoughts-plato-chimaera-and-indus-civilization
PDF: "Harappan Chimaeras as ââ¬ËSymbolic Hypertextsââ¬â¢. Some Thoughts on Plato, Chimaera and the Indus Civilization"]
The "Plato" in the title intrigued me. I found a page in the PDF mentioning "Greek myth" in a subtitle, which section ends up being interesting:
harappa.com/sites/default/files/201311/Frenez%20Vidale%202012%20-%20Harappan%20Chimaeras.pdf
p.5
Quote:Harappan Chimaeras as ââ¬ËSymbolic Hypertextsââ¬â¢. Some Thoughts on Plato, Chimaera and the Indus Civilization
Dennys Frenez & Massimo Vidale
Department of Archaeology, University of Bologna, Casa Traversari, Via San Vitale 28/30,
48121, Ravenna, Italy
Department of Cultural Heritage, University of Padua, Palazzo del Liviano, Piazza
Capitaniato 7, 35139, Padova, Italy
Version of record first published: 11 Oct 2012
Dennys Frenez & Massimo Vidale (2012): Harappan Chimaeras as 'Symbolic Hypertexts'. Some Thoughts on Plato, Chimaera and the Indus Civilization, South Asian Studies, 28:2, 107-130
dx.doi.org/10.1080/02666030.2012.725578
[...]
(Paragraphs discussing why 'unicorn' IVC depictions were of unicorns and not of 2 horned animals in profile.) This indisputably demonstrates that this creature was conceived by the Indus people as an actual unicorn at least during the second half of the third millennium BCE, when it was also depicted on the stamp seals.
Furthermore, as stressed by J. M. Kenoyer, the Indus unicorn was not the only case of prominent fantastic animals used as powerful symbols during the Bronze Age; 'these figurines and the seals motifs demonstrate that the Indus people believe in this one-horned animal [...] perhaps this animal was like the mythical animals carved onto the Shang bronzes in early China that guided and protected the owner in the real world as well as in the spirit world'.15
Harappan chimaeras and their relationship with Greek myth
One of the most intriguing aspects of the Indus seals iconography is the creation and frequent use of composite images made by assembling with remarkable arbitrariness anatomic portions of different animals and human body parts.
[...]
We will call this imaginary being the 'Harappan chimaera'.17
[...]
In ancient Greece chimaera was a rather popular monster, but even classical writers, two thousand years ago, wondered about its features and name and tried to justify rationally its odd nature with erudite explanations, for example linking it to natural volcanic phenomena. Besides Plato, chimaera was mentioned by poets and historians like Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Pseudo-Apollodorus, Strabo, Pausanias, Diodorus Siculus, and others as a fierce, fire-breathing beast who lived in the East, possibly in Anatolia, until it was killed by the hero Bellerophon.20 The creature had a snake or dragon for a tail, the central part of the body of a goat, a goat-like head emerging from its back, and a lion head crowned by a thick mane, even if the ancient texts always refer to the creature as female.
The Indus creature (Figures 3, 4, and 5) was composed of three major animal parts (plus other secondary parts as detained in the following paragraph), respectively, from the rear: snake (cobra), feline (tiger), and goat (markhor).21 Even though the order of the two latter parts is sometimes switched and there are - as we shall see - other animal elements and more complex combinations, this is enough to consider this early Indian composite creature in the imposing and very mysterious evolutionary tree of chimaeras, although at a good branching distance from its later Greek versions.
[...]
No comment is necessary I suppose.
Instead, will mention that:
1. the Taoist Long ("dragon") of the Chinese is also a 'chimera' in the general sense that word is used in English today.
BTW, the Taoist Long is NOT imaginary: Longs are Daoist Deities and other Special Beings.
2. Yazhis of Hindu temples and sacred imagery are 'chimera' in this sense too. In several respects, a common kind show some consistency: lion for much of face and body, but snake-like or elephant trunk for a nose/tongue/entire snout (sometimes a triple snakes or elephant trunk form the tongues).
qph.is.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-3c1e48a4791f0dc5190f229afeb3400d?convert_to_webp=true
qph.is.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-ce38fb84a77ea660941caf36d344659d?convert_to_webp=true
Mouth like a trunk here:
media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/05/b0/83/58/aayiram-kaal-mandapam.jpg
Fished out a relative's book on Yazhi illustrations made by one of the famous Hindoo temple/moorti shilpis.
Some other yazhi forms:
- There are also yazhis forms involving sea-like creatures, like the fantastical form of a makara as face but with elephant trunk with decorative peacock/swan tail and still bird legs.
- Lion/tiger with peacock or "decorative" swan tail, sitting on a lion-headed snake.
There's also an illustration in the book that the shilpi made of an elephant swallowing a horse's head. But while the trunk and ear of the elephant is visible, the elephant head looks like a reversed 2 horn *cow* face (i.e. a cow head to a horse body facing in the direction of the now headless elephant). It's like some Escher image at the point where the cow head meets horse head. Sort of like this next albeit-2-animal-version of an elephant and cow in the temple image at
flickr.com/photos/me_ram/5514038980
Hindus have yazhi-like Gods too. E.g. Sarabeshwara (Shiva), Pratyangira Amman, and of course Kamadhenu is often depicted with the head of (human-like) Devi, body of Cow and wings.
What's remarkable is that Hindoo shilpis are so good at studying native Hindoo animals and drawing them for practice, before they then make traditional "ornamental" vaahana versions for the Gods or else depict yazhis as a combination of ornamental versions of various animals. Hindoo artists so talented. :love:
Although yazhis are ubiquitous in Tamizh southern Hindoo temples and may be so in other Hindoo temples, yazhis are also visible in Nepalese Hindu tantra "tangka"* paintings for instance, and this had already made me suspect that yazhis may have once been a common feature to all Hindoos, especially since the yazhi appears to trace to the Veda and IVC too. [I'm not sure one is allowed to say it: but yazhis seem to me to show Hindoos' continuity in their Hindoo sacred imagery from Vedic and IVC times.]
(*IIRC the Buddhists in Tibet ended up using what look like Taoist Longs for their Bauddhified copy of Hindu Tantra Tangka imagery [involving Bauddhified versions of Hindu Gods], because of ancient Chinese Taoist-derived influences in Tibet both from Taoism proper and from Chinese Bauddhified Taoist motifs.)
3. Persians had imagery of
- lion with wings,
- some bearded priest-like male humanoid head with the body of a lion and large wings.
Persians also had an image depicting a goat being bitten by a lion. This last isn't a chimera, consisting of two whole distinct animals, though joined, but it seems to be common imagery. (Since no body part of either animal is actually missing, it doesn't remind me of the one headed cow-horse or cow-elephant in Hindoo sculptures seen in TN.)
4. Subhash Kak in his recent article about Otzi the iceman, mentioned the Gundestrup cauldron as featuring Gajalakshmi: two "elephants" on the side of a human-like head. (Presumably native-science.net/Images/Gundestrup%20Images07.Plate%20E.jpg )
* Interesting is that they should have - what seem to me - lion-like animals, besides "elephant" like ones (though the trunk may be explained as that of an ant-eater. But the Gundestrup creature's "trunk" is not stable enough to be that of the European anteater. But maybe it's just a fantastical creature? Fancy hitting upon a trunk through sheer imagination.)
* I suppose, because the next is a "profile" view, they may explain that it has two horns and is not like an IVC "unicorn":
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1e/ChaudronDeGundestrup5.jpg
* The lion-like creatures in this next image (complete with what look like manes, but could be dismissed as dragon-headed) look very traditional yazhi-like qua pose:
landschaftsmuseum.de/Bilder/Gundestrup_Platte2-2.jpg
Of course we know that the lion is featured heavily on banners and everything in much of Europe, especially regions that never had lions.
* And I factually confuse the IVC Pashupati seal with the Pashupati-like (with antlers) Gundestrup character.
5. In googling for Gundestrup images, found this:
historum.com/asian-history/70150-aryan-invasion-other-matters-13.html
(Apparently Indians had been bringing the matter up.)
The above link indicates what to google for concerning Persian imagery: "Achaemenid relief".
* "Griffin Lion" of Persians:
c8.alamy.com/comp/D95PPA/ancient-persia-achaemenid-period-530-330-bc-griffin-lion-relief-in-D95PPA.jpg
* Winged bull:
s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/cf/c2/5c/cfc25c279499a59989a2ecde9c6efb1b.jpg
* Winged Iranian feline with goat-like head (horns seem to be distinct from ears)?
easysavings.com.mt/images/shops/isfahan/Logo%20Isfahan.jpg
* "Gold griffin-headed armlet Achaemenid Persian, 5th-4th century BC"
s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/a5/fe/f1/a5fef15170c9416fcec3c4a9fa3e19be.jpg
6. "Animals in Ancient Near Eastern Art"
metmuseum.org/toah/hd/anan/hd_anan.htm
Quote:During the late fourth to early third millennium B.C. in Elam (southwestern Iran), craftspeople created remarkable depictions of animals behaving like humansââ¬âa theme that may have related to early myths or fables, now lost (66.173).
Which figure 66.173 links to this 'chimera' of bull head and upper torso but with body of human, sitting in human posture:
metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/66.173
But that's late 4th to 3rd millennium BCE in Iran.
Yet chimera imagery it is.
(By the way, there are some generally amazing images at
metmuseum.org/toah/hd/anan/hd_anan.htm )
Regardless of whether IVC is allowed to be Vedic and/or its iconography is allowed to be so,
"Elam" (SW Iran) at 4th to 3rd millennia BCE has not been called IE by IE-ists in any sense afaik (but is supposed to have Sumerian connections...),
hence "chimera" type imagery can't be claimed as some IE motif.