Hinduism: Details about 'Han Dynasty Silk Comet Atlas'
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These drawings of comets dated to 168 BC from the Han Dynasty silk comet atlas, unearthed from Han tomb number 3 at Mawangdui, Changsha, China, are part of a large number of documents, which includes the I Ching and two similar versions of the Tao Te Ching, found during the 1970's and often referred to as the Ma-wang-tui Texts. Each illustration has a caption describing what will happen if the comet as depicted appears so the artifact is basically an atlas of comet forms seen in the past. It should not be assumed that each drawing represents a different comet, as any particular comet might appear quite differently to an observer on each trip it makes about the sun.
Comet-inspired motifsThe Han Dynasty silk comet atlas is a compelling explanation for the ubiquity of the swastika motif. In their Cosmic Serpent (1982) (page 155) Victor Clube and Bill Napier reproduced a portion of this silk atlas and suggest that some of the comet drawings were probably related to the breakup of the progenitor of comet Encke and the Taurid meteoroid stream. This object could have produced several very bright comets in short period (~3.3 years) orbits that crossed Earth's path. Fred Whipple in his The Mystery of Comets (1985) (page 163) points out that comet Encke's polar axis is only 5 degrees from its orbital plane. Such an orientation is ideal to have presented a pinwheel like aspect to our ancestors when comet Encke was more active. Carl Sagan in his book Comet (1985) points out that an outgassing comet that could produce a pinwheel appearance to someone looking down the comet's axis of rotation would look very different to an observer viewing the same comet along its equator. Bob Kobres in (1992) contends that the swastika like comet on the Han Dynasty silk comet atlas was labeled a "long tailed pheasant star" because its resemblance to a There is a strong association in ancient artifacts between the swastika and the owl in particular. Owls have or semizygodactylous (outer toe reversible) feet that can leave swastika like foot-prints in loose dirt or sand. Chinese lore upholds such an interpretation as Ts'ang Chieh, the four eyed legendary inventor of writing, derived his inspiration to create written symbols from noticing the marks of birds' feet in the sand. His ancient style is known as niao chiwen--"bird foot-prints writing." . In a less artificial environ animal tracks speak strongly to people and convey much about the creature which left them. Thus a bear, bird or any animal which made impressions on the ground could be symbolically represented in total by drawing these marks. This suggests that the jetting comet, to some cultures, looked like a bird's foot in the sky and, as a motif, represented a divine fowl. Symbolic bird tracks, unrecognized as such, appear on objects unearthed by Heinrich Schliemann from Hissarlik in Asia Minor. Artifactual support for this contention comes from petroglyphs found in the south-western United States which Pueblo people identify as roadrunner (a type of cuckoo) tracks and identical renderings found by Schliemann. The close association of these two distinctive crosses on artifacts from Schliemann's Troy could be considered coincidental and not necessarily avion-inspired were they found out of context, however, in Schliemann's words: In treating now of the various kinds of pottery of this third city, I begin with the owl-faced idols and vases, and I would repeatedly call very particular attention to the fact, that the idols, of which I collected about 700, are all of the same shape; that they represent in the rudest possible outlines a female form; and that, therefore, they cannot but be copies of the ancient Palladium, which was fabled to have fallen from heaven with joined feet. An interesting aspect of the rolling cross motif and its link to birds is the ancient mythical image of a one-legged fowl. This is also a characteristic of the Chinese divine pheasant which was closely associated with the fabulous, lame, raven-beak-nosed emperor, Yu, who could transform himself into this pheasant or a bear. One of Yu's enemies, the Owl, who invented thunder and lightening was also one-footed. . Yu's shape-shifting ability can be understood as related to the view a comet associated with him presented to our ancestors. Perhaps the association of the Sanskrit term svastika with this symbol can be linked to the Astika Parva in the Mahabharata which relates the birth of a cosmic bird par excellence--Garuda. This fabulous winged deity had a radiance like the Sun, could change shapes at will, and destroyed other gods and kings by casting down fire and stirring up storms of reddish dust which darkened the Sun, Moon and stars. Clearly Garuda was symbolic of an Earth approaching comet. The bird-comet connection is even more obvious in the Jamva-khanda Nirmana Parva of the Mahabharata which describes a fierce fowl with but one wing, one eye, and one leg, hovering in the night sky. As this bird "screams" and "vomits blood":
The mention of Rahu, the demon of eclipse, which originally had four arms and a tail that was severed by Vishnu to become Ketu (comet) is interesting in that the demon is here darkening Kirttika (the Pleiades) in the month of Karttika (latter half of October, through mid November), for the tale goes on to relate that:
This is, almost certainly, a mythological record of an intense meteor storm from the still active Taurid stream which presently peaks around the first of November and appears to radiate from near the Pleiades star cluster. The un-airworthy bird associated with this meteor bombardment could have been comet Encke which until recently was thought to be the sole source for the Taurid meteors. However, the discovery of other large contributors which are now dark but were once active comets rules out a positive identification. According to Alfred Hillebrandt in his Vedic Mythology (1981 English edition, vol 2 pp 259-60) there is evidence of the notion of a celestial bird foot-print in early Indian literature. Thus the likelihood of the motif that actually looks like a bird's foot-print, often appears in a cosmic context, and eventually became associated with the term svastika being related to that celestial bird is high. Hillebrandt relates that it was the seven Rsis who settled down (in the heavens) to practice and with the five Adhvaryus they guard He goes on to state:
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