MAN AND BEAST

As it was said in the last posting, there are ancient representations of gods and goddesses taming an animal. For instance, the Tarot card XI, Strength, represents a young woman forcing a lion to open his mouth.

Among the Sumerians and Babylonians, Gilgamesh is also shown while dominating a lion, while Marduk controls a boat where he sails with a dragon. These are references to the animal part of man, which are also present in Judeo-Christian tradition, as we can read in the Book of Genesis (3:1): “Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?”

In the story of the devil tempting Adam and Eve, the former is also personified as a beast, a serpent in this case.

According to these ancient traditions, this animal part is always shown as something significant, not to be overlooked.

Inanna-Ishtar, for instance, has even probably inspired the representation of the devil in the Marseillian tarot card, thousands of years later:

In this case, the Sumerian goddess is shown as standing on two lions, while the devil stands upon the world. The two owls flanking Inanna became the two men with donkey ears who are chained to the devil’s possession, the world.

Another image shows us St. George killing a dragon, another Christian variant of the serpent:

There is more to think about in all these images, but now, it would be interesting to pay attention to the famous dancing Shiva who, though in many images appears as controlling a beast, is here shown as standing upon a baby, clearly symbolizing that these animals are really something within man.

To strengthen this idea, the millenary I Ching says, “When the spirit of heaven rules in man, his animal nature takes its appropriate place.” Plotinus, in the 2nd century also refers to this animal part: “The true person is something different, pure from contact with the animal part of our nature.”

Among the Mesoamericans, Quetzalcoatl himself was a feathered serpent, and in a myth from the 4th century he says: “The evil spirit persuaded the Toltecs to do evil deeds. To reach this goal he took different personalities. He changed his body into animal shapes and monstrous beings, and appeared as a prostitute.”

As we see, different cultures, apart in time and space, convey surprisingly similar ideas. We will return to this.


© Hugo Ferraguti