A History of Religious Ideas, Volume 1: From the Stone Age to the Eleusinian Mysteries

by Mircea Eliade

Presumably because that was Prajapatti’s own fate, which is being re-enacted through this ritual.

The atman or person (your identity or sense of self, I think?) is created by reenacting the creation of the universe in ritual form.

Brahman refers to both the ritual and the professionals who conduct it; though it seems like the latter meaning may be from later in time.

I am guessing that the name stems from the place where these practices were taught?

That escalated quickly

I am kind of curious how the two are linked. Their connection can be threaded out, but it does not strike me as particularly intuitive.

I still do not entirely see the link between Tapas and sacrifice. I guess not eating and practicing extreme asceticism is a sort of sacrifice in the colloquial sense of the word, but I don’t think that is what Eliade means. Every other parallel shares some more direct metaphorical connection,

Understanding will replace ritual. I, for one, very much prefer ritual.

Is “the forest” just a general term used to refer to any wilderness, or are there a lot more forests in India than I previously suspected?

Their meditations on sacrifice as something greater than the gods led to a break with a more god-centric populace?

To sacrifice something you must meditate on the self.

Sort of veering to a Protestant-like belief that only an internal experience can lead to transcendence. Acts abs rituals are never sufficient.

They will temporarily gain salvation, but return to earth. This is the first mention of reincarnation in thus text. Does the concept date back to the Upanishads?

The concept of salvation implies the existence of sin, from which to be saved, and requires the alternate possibility of damnation.

It must end because a limit to the bliss of salvation is demanded as the result of sin.

There are still debts to be paid, don’t be thinking you can shirk them just by going and dying ... slacker.

There were acts performed in life and effects that must follow. Those effects lead to further acts with additional effects and so on, ad infinitum.

Am odd thing to say after proclaiming how the creation of the doctrine is clearly the result of Beahmanic focus on sacrifice as the heart of their religion. In fact, this entire preceding section, while certainly plausible, is entirely un-cited. I have no way to know if Eliade thought of a plausible reason to move from the ritualistic focus of the Rig Veda to the more spiritual focus of the Upanishads and then just proclaimed his plausible explanation to be fact.

All acts have consequences that unfold here in the mortal realm, thereby demanding the actors eventual return to face those consequences.

The first cause in the chain of causes which is central to the epistemology of Vedic (or maybe Proto-Hindu?) religion.

Also the class of priests who minister to the gods, including, presumably, their namesake.

Each of our true selves are this one universal being?

As an individual you cease to be. That sounds horrible. Maybe it sounds horrible to me because I am not yet ready. Maybe, from the perspective of a believer, the sign of salvation is contentment in ceasing to be as an individual and merging back into something else.

I never really understood the idea of meditating on a concept. Once told that this concept is both contradictory and true, I do not know what it means to contemplate that reality. It is inexplicable, but it is also the way it is, my only real instinct is to accept it and move on. Plenty of things do not make sense. I see no reason why something as complex as the nature of reality should not be among them.

Meaning that thoughts and feelings are part of the illusory world of matter?

Maybe I have difficulty drawing any value from meditating on paradox because I am nowhere near ready to be freed from the wheels of the cosmic cycle.

So, not even my mental self is immortal. The immortal part of me is nothing more than a spark or seed of my being, whose manifestation in my life or personality is somewhat dubious.

The idea being to “step” away from your own mind or personality. Presumably, whatever is left is that seed of divinity which is truly “you.”

Is this a typo? Should it read “Hurrian?”

The fact that his cosmology shares themes with those of Western Asia does not prove that he knew of the latter. I saw 10 Things I Hate About You years before I ever read, or became familiar with the Taming of The Shrew. I became familiar with the common themes of the stories through my exposure to the adaptation, not the originals. Had I never subsequently heard of the Taming of the Shrew, I would have remained familiar with those themes. I see no reason why Hesiod’s own familiarity could not stem from myths adapted from Eastern sources, allowing him familiarity with the themes despite having never seen the originals.

Zeus is conquering the wild powers of nature.

A part of a different work inserted into the text.

How did Uranus participate?

It seems odd that the earth belongs to everyone in common.

I never knew Zeus had another wife before Hera.

So he’s the first person ever to avoid bringing about the result of a prophecy in their effort to avoid it. It is also odd that Zeus swallowed Prudence. First, it does not seem like a particularly prudent move. Second, does this cause him to become prudent? Is her circumspection going to be part of his identity as a god of kingship and governance?

Wow, two wives before Hera. I feel like I would be reluctant to sign up to marry this guy after he had eaten his first wife.

I actually had never noticed, or even thought to check, that most of the goddesses Zeus slept with were Chthonian goddesses.

There’s a certain logic here, given how storms and rain effect the fertility of the earth. These myths do more or less recreate a natural cycle in story form.

This relies on that old, and somewhat questionable, premise that the earth goddesses of Greek myth were inherited from an indigenous matrilineal society, while the Olympian gods came from a patrilineal society that invaded and conquered the peninsula.

Or a mythological representation of the sound of the surf against the rocky shores of Crete.

Unless he began his existence as such a mystery god, and was later adapted as society changed.

Zeus of the Earth

Not so much a greatest among equals, but a god which is more powerful than the others by an order of magnitude.

I thought that the cord mentioned in the Iliad was more a plot-device or a hypothetical then some actual artifact with which Zeus is thought to have gained or enforced dominion. That’s why it’s “a cord” not “the cord” (assuming for a moment that Greek uses definite and indefinite articles, I actually have no idea if that’s true). Perhaps the later myth of Zeus and Nyx is a riff on, or allusion to, that older story from the Iliad.

I never knew that myth.

Does he necessarily have a history. Could he not have been created in the past tense, like so many creator-gods?

We’re made of the same raw materials.

A creative act of separation (like cutting a worm in half to make two works).

It has always struck me that the latter two “races” of man correspond with different ages of material culture: bronze then iron. It has also always struck me that the people of the Iron Age saw themselves as the race of iron, and saw the race of bronze as their predecessors, albeit with a short-lived race of heroes in between. Is it more than coincidence that this mirrors the Bronze Age, Bronze Age Collapse and Iron Age? Is it reflective of that history being mythologized and passed on? Is it a meaning that I am imposing from the remote future on a story I have altered to fit my premise?