Mircea Eliade
Exactly like the city or the sanctuary, the house is sanctified (..) by a cosmological symbolism or ritual. This is why settling somewhere -by building a village or merely a house- represents a serious decision, for the very existence of me is involved. The house is not an object, a machine to live in it is the universe that man constructs for himself by imitating the paradigmatic creation of the Gods, the cosmogony. Every construction, every inauguration of a new building are in some measure equivalent to a new beginning, a new life -incipit vita nova.
Eliade, Mircea, 'The World, the city, the house,' published 1976
The
multiple homologies among cosmos, land, city, temple palace, house and hut
emphasize the same fundamental symbolism: each on of these images expresses the
existential experience of being in the world, more exactly, of being situated
in an organized and meaningful world.
Eliade,
Mircea, 'The World, the city, the house,' published 1976
Living
in the world has a religious value (..) But if living in the world for archaic
man has a religious value, this is a result of a specific experience of what can
be called sacred space. Indeed, for religious man, space is not homogenous:
some parts of space are qualitatively different. There is a sacred and hence a
strong, significant space: and there are other spaces that are not sacred and
so are without structure, form or meaning. For religious men, this spatial
non-homogeneity finds expression in the experience of an opposition between
space that is sacred -the only real and really existing space- and all other
space, the formless expanse surrounding it. The religious experience of the
non-homogeneity of space is a primordial experience comparable to the founding
of the worlds. For it is the break effected in space that allows the world to
be constituted, because it reveals the fixed point, the central axes of all
future orientation. When the sacred manifests itself in any hierophany, there
is not only a break in the homogeneity of space; there is also a revelation of
an absolute reality, opposed to the non reality of the vast surrounding
expanse. The manifestation of the sacred ontologically creates the world.
Eliade,
Mircea, 'The World, the city, the house,' published 1976
So
it is clear to what a great degree the discovery -that is, the revelation- of a
sacred space possesses existential value for religious man: for nothing can
begin, nothing can be done without a previous orientation -and any orientation
implies acquiring a fixed point. it is for this reason that religious man has
always sought to affix his abode at the 'center of the world' If the world is
to be lived in it must be founded. (..) The discovery or projection of a fixed
point -the center- is equivalent to the creation of the world. Ritual
orientation and construction of sacred space has a cosmogonic value, for the
ritual by which man constructs a sacred space is efficacious in the measure
which it reproduces the work of the Gods, i.e. Cosmogony.
Eliade,
Mircea, 'The World, the city, the house,' published 1976
Religious
man's desire to live in the sacred is in fact equivalent to his desire to take
up his abode in objective reality, not to let himself be paralyzed by the
never-ceasing relativity of purely subjective experiences, to live in a real
and effective world, and not in an illusion. This behavior is documented on
every plane of reiigious man's existence, but it is particularly evident in his
desire to move about only in a sanctified world, that is, in a sacred space.
This is the reason for the elaboration of techniques of orientation which, properly
speaking, are techniques for the construction of sacred space. But we must not
suppose that human work is in question here, that it is through his own efforts
that man can consecrate a space. In reality the ritual by which he constructs a
sacred space is efficacious in the measure in which it reproduces the work of
the gods. But the better to understand the need for ritual construction of a
sacred space, we must dwell a little on the traditional concept of the world ;
it will then be apparent that for religious man every world is a sacred world.
Mircea
Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane;The Nature of Religion; The Significance of
Religious Myth, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture, New York 1961
CHAOS
AND COSMOS One of the outstanding characteristics of traditional societies is
the opposition that they assume between their inhabited territory and the
unknown and indeterminate space that surrounds it. The former is the world
(more precisely, our world), the cosmos; everything outside it is no longer a
cosmos but a sort of other world, a foreign, chaotic space, peopled by
ghosts, demons, foreigners (who are assimilated to demons and the
souls of the dead). At first sight this cleavage in space appears to be due to
the opposition between an inhabited and organized-hence cosmicized -territory
and the unknown space that extends beyond its frontiers; on one side there is a
cosmos, on the other a chaos. But we shall see that if every inhabited
territory is a cosmos, this is precisely because it was first consecrated,
because, in one way or another, it is the work of the gods or is in
communication with the world of the gods. The world (that is, our world) is a
universe within which the sacred has already manifested itself, in which,
consequently, the break-through from plane to plane has become possible and
repeatable. It is not difficult to see why the religious moment implies the
cosmogonic moment. The sacred reveals absolute reality and at the same time
makes orientation possible; hence it founds the world in the sense that it
fixes the limits and establishes the order of the world. All this appears very
clearly from the Vedic ritual for taking possession of a territory; possession
becomes legally valid through the erection of a fire altar consecrated to Agni.
One says that one is installed when one has built a fire altar [garhapatya] and
all those who build the fire altar are legally
established (Shatapatha Brahmana, VII, 1, 1, 1-4). By the erection
of a fire altar Agni is made present, and communication with the world of the
gods is ensured; the space of the altar becomes a sacred space. But the meaning
of the ritual is far more complex, and if we consider all of its ramifications
we shall understand why consecrating a territory is equivalent to making it a
cosmos, to cosmicizing it. For, in fact, the erection of an altar to Agni is
nothing but the reproduction-on the microcosmic scale- of the Creation. The
water in which the clay is mixed is assimilated to the primordial water; the
clay that forms the base of the altar symbolizes the earth; the lateral walls
represent the atmosphere, and so on. And the building of the altar is
accompanied by songs that proclaim which cosmic region has just been created
(Shatapatha Brahrnana I, 9, 2, 29, etc.). Hence the erection of a fire
altar-which alone validates taking possession of a new territory-is equivalent
to a cosmogony.
Mircea
Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane;The Nature of Religion; The Significance of
Religious Myth, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture, New York 1961
What
type of sentence will an absolute mind construct? I considered that even in the
human languages there is no proposition that does not imply the entire
universe; to say the tiger is to say the tigers that begot it, the der and
turtles devoured by it, the grass on which the deer fed, the earth that was
mother to the grass, the heaven that gave birth to the earth. I considered that
in the language of a god every word would enunciate that infinite concatenation
of facts, and not in an implicit but in an explicit manner, and not
progressively but but instantaneously. In time the notion of a divine sentence
seemed peurile or blasphemous. A god, I reflected, ought to utter only a single
word and in that word absolute fullness. No word uttered by him can be inferior
tot eh universe or less than the sum total of time. Shadows or simulacra of
that single word equivalent to a language and to all a language can embrace are
the poor and ambitious human words, all, world, universe
Jorge
Luis Borges, Labyrinth, The God's Script. English Edition 1960
A
man becomes confused, gradually, with the form of his destiny
Jorge
Luis Borges, Labyrinth, The God's Script. English Edition 1960
An
unknown, foreign, and unoccupied territory (which often means, unoccupied by
our people) still shares in the fluid and larval modality of chaos. By
occupying it and, above all, by settling in it, man symbolically transforms it
into a cosmos through a rltual repetition of the cosmogony. What is to become
our world must first be created, and every creation has a
paradigmatic model-the creation of the universe by the gods. When the
Scandinavian colonists took possession of Iceland (land-nama) and cleared it,
they regarded the enterprise neither as an original undertaking nor as human
and profane work. For them, their labor was only repetition of a primordial
act, the transformation of chaos into cosmos by the divine act of creation.
When they tilled the desert soil, they were in fact repeating the act of the
gods who had organized chaos by giving it a structure, forms, and norms.
Mircea
Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane;The Nature of Religion; The Significance of
Religious Myth, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture, New York 1961
Whether
it is a case of clearing uncultivated ground or of conquering and occupying a
territory already inhabited by other human beings, ritual taking
possession must always repeat the cosmogony. For in the view of archaic
societies everything that is not our world is not yet a world. A territory
can be made ours only by creating it anew, that is by consecrating it. This
religious behavior in respect to unknown lands continued, even in the West,
down to the dawn of modern times. The Spanish and Portuguese conquistadores,
discovering and conquering territories, took possession of them in the name of
Jesus Christ. The raising of the Cross was equivalent to consecrating the
country, hence in some sort to a new birth. For through Christ old
things are passed away; behold, all things are become new (II
Corinthians, 5, 17). The newly discovered country was
renewed, recreated by the Cross.
Mircea
Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane;The Nature of Religion; The Significance of
Religious Myth, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture, New York 1961
It
must be understood that the cosmicization of unknown territories is always a
consecration; to organize a space is to repeat the paradigmatic work of the
gods. The close connection between cosmicization and consecration is already
documented on the elementary levels of culturc for example, among the nomadic
Australians whose economy is still at the stage of gathering and small-game
hunting. According to the traditions of an Arunta tribe, the Achilpa, in
mythical times the divine being Numbakula cosmizised their future territory,
created their Ancestor, and established their institutions. From the trunk of a
gum tree Numbakula fashioned the sacred pole (kauwa-anwa) and, after anointing
it with blood, climbed it and disappeared into the sky. This pole represents a
cosmic axis, for it is around the sacred pole that territory becomes habitable,
hence is transformed into a world. The sacred pole consequently plays an
important role ritually. During their wanderings the Achilpa always carry it with
them and choose the direction they are to take by the direction toward which it
bends. This allows them, while being continually on the move, to be always in
their world and, at the same time, in communication with the sky
into which Numbakula vanished. For the pole to be broken denotes catastrophe;
it is like the end of the world, reversion to chaos. Spencer and Gillen
report that once, when the pole was broken, the entire clan were in
consternation; they wandered about aimlessly for a time, and finally lay down
on the ground together and waited for death to overtake them. This example
admirably illustrates both the cosmological function of the sacred pole and its
soteriological role. For on the one hand the kauwa-auwa reproduces the pole
that Numbakula used to cosmicize the world, and on the other the Achilpa
believe it to be the meaning by which they can communicate with the sky realm.
Now human existence is possible only by virtue of this permanent communication
with the sky. The world of the Achilpa really becomes their world only in
proportion as it reproduces, the cosmos organised and sanctified by Numbakula.
Life is not possible without an opening toward the transcendent; in other
words, human being cannot live in chaos. Once contact with the transcendent is
lost, existence in the world ceases to be possible and the Achilpa let
themselves die.
Mircea
Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane;The Nature of Religion; The Significance of
Religious Myth, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture, New York 1961
To settle in a territory is, in the last analysis, equivalent to consecrating it. When settlement is not temporary as among the nomads, but permanent, as among seden tary peoples, it implies a vital decision that involves the existence of the entire community. Establishment in a particular place, organising it, inhabiting it, are acts the presuppose an existential choice the choice of the universe that one is prepared to assume by creating it. Now, this universe is always the replica of the paradigmatic universe created and inhabited by the gods; hence it shares in the sanctity of the gods' work.
Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane;The Nature of Religion; The Significance of Religious Myth, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture, New York 1961
The
sacred pole of the Achilpa supports their world and ensures communication with
the sky. Here we have the prototype of a cosmological image that has been very
widely disseminated-the cosmic pillars that support heaven and at the same time
open the road to the world of the gods. Until their conversion to Christianity,
the Celts and Germans still maintained their worship of such sacred pillars.
The Chronicum Laurissense breve, written about 80O, reports that in the course
of one of his wars against the Saxons (772), Charlemagne destroyed the temple
and the sacred wood of their famous Irminsul in the town of Eresburg.
Rudolf of Fulda (c. 860) adds that this famous pillar is the pillar of the
universe which, as it were, supports all things (universalis columna quasi
sustinens omnia). The same cosmological image is found not only among the
Romans (Horace, Odes, III, 3) and in ancient India, where we hear of the
skambha, the cosmic pillar (Rig Veda, I, 105; X, 89, 4; etc.), but also among
the Canary Islanders and in such distant cultures as those of the Kwakiutl
(British Columbia) and of the Nad'a of Flores Island (Indonesia). The Kwakintl
believe that a copper pole passes through the three cosmic levels (underworld,
earth, sky); the point at which it enters the sky is the door to the world
above. The visible image of this cosmic pillar in the sky is the Milky
Way. But the work of the gods, the universe, is repeated and imitated by men on
their own scale. The axis mundi, seen in the sky in the form of the Milky Way,
appears in the ceremonial house in the form of a sacred pole. It is the trunk
of a cedar tree, thirty to thirty-five feet high, over half of which projects
through the roof. This pillar plays a primary part in the ceremonies; it confers
a cosmic structure on the house. In the ritual songs the house is called our
world and the candidates for initiation, who live in it, proclaim: I am at
the Center of the World.... I am at the Post of the World, and so on. The
same assimilation of the cosmic pillar to the sacred pole and of the ceremonial
house to the universe is found among the Nad'a of Flores Island. The
sacrificial pole is called the Pole of Heaven and is believed to support
the sky.
Mircea
Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane;The Nature of Religion; The Significance of
Religious Myth, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture, New York 1961
The
cry of the Kwakiutl neophyte, I am at the Center of the World! at once
reveals one of the deepest meanings of sacred space. Where the break-through
from plane to plane has been effected by a hierophany, there too an opening has
been made, either upward (the divine world) or downward (the underworld, the
world of the dead). The three cosmic levels carth, heaven, underworld-have been
put in communication. As we just saw, this communication is sometimes expressed
through the image of a universal pillar, axis mundi, which at once connects and
supports heaven and earth and whose base is fixed in the world below (the
infernal regions) Such a cosmic pillar can be only at the very center of the
universe, for the whole of the habitable world extends around it. Here, then,
we have a sequence of religious conceptions and cosmological images that are
inseparably connected and form a system that may be called the system of the
world prevalent in traditional societies: (a) a sacred place constitutes a
break in the homogeneity of space; (b) this break is symbolized by an opening
by which passage from one cosmic region to another is made possible (from heaven
to earth and vice versa; from earth to the underworld); (c) communication with
heaven is expressed by one or another of certain images, all of which refer to
the axis mundi: pillar (cf. the universalis columna), ladder (cf. Jacob's
ladder), mountain, tree, vine, etc.; (d) around this cosmic axis lies the world
(= our world), hence the axis is located in the middle, at the navel of
the earth; it is the Center of the World. Many different myths, rites, and
beliefs are derived from this traditional system of the world.
Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane;The Nature of Religion; The Significance of Religious Myth, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture, New York 1961
Living
in the world has a religious value (..) But if living in the world for archaic
man has a religious value, this is a result of a specific experience of what
can be called sacred space. Indeed, for religious man, space is not homogenous:
some parts of space are qualitatively different. There is a sacred and hence a
strong, significant space: and there are other spaces that are not sacred and
so are without structure, form or meaning. For religious men, this spatial
non-homogeneity finds expression in the experience of an opposition between
space that is sacred -the only real and really existing space- and all other
space, the formless expanse surrounding it. The religious experience of the
non-homogeneity of space is a primordial experience comparable to the founding
of the worlds. For it is the break effected in space that allows the world to
be constituted, because it reveals the fixed point, the central axes of all
future orientation. When the sacred manifests itself in any hierophany, there
is not only a break in the homogeneity of space; there is also a revelation of
an absolute reality, opposed to the non reality of the vast surrounding
expanse. The manifestation of the sacred ontologically creates the world. (..)
So it is clear to what a great degree the discovery -that is, the revelation-
of a sacred space possesses existential value for religious man: for nothing
can begin, nothing can be done without a previous orientation -and any
orientation implies acquiring a fixed point. it is for this reason that
religious man has always sought to affix his abode at the 'center of the world'
If the world is to be lived in it must be founded. (..) The discovery or
projection of a fixed point -the center- is equivalent to the creation of the
world. Ritual orientation and construction of sacred space has a cosmogonic
value, for the ritual by which man constructs a sacred space is efficacious in
the measure which it reproduces the work of the Gods, i.e. Cosmogony.
Eliade,
Mircea, 'The World, the city, the house,' Occultism, Witchcraft and Cultural
Fashions; Essays in Comparative Religions, Chicago/London, 1976
The
multiple homologies among cosmos, land, city, temple palace, house and hut
emphasize the same fundamental symbolism: each on of these images expresses the
existential experience of being in the world, more exactly, of being situated
in an organized and meaningful world.
Eliade,
Mircea, 'The World, the city, the house,' Occultism, Witchcraft and Cultural
Fashions; Essays in Comparative Religions, Chicago/London, 1976
Exactly
like the city or the sanctuary, the house is sanctified (..) by a cosmological
symbolism or ritual. This is why settling somewhere -by building a village or
merely a house- represents a serious decision, for the very existence of me is
involved. The house is not an object, a machine to live in it is the
universe that man constructs for himself by imitating the paradigmatic creation
of the Gods, the cosmogony. Every construction, every inauguration of a new
building are in some measure equivalent to a new beginning, a new life -incipit
vita nova.
Eliade,
Mircea, 'The World, the city, the house,' Occultism, Witchcraft and Cultural
Fashions; Essays in Comparative Religions, Chicago/London, 1976
For
religious man, space is not homogeneous; he experiences interruptions, breaks
in it; some parts of space are qualitatively different from others. Draw not
nigh hither, says the Lord to Moses; put off thy shoes from off thy
feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground (Exodus, 3,
5). There is, then, a sacred space, and hence a strong, significant space;
there are other spaces that are not sacred and so are without structure or
consistency, amorphous. Nor is this all. For reIigious man, this spatial
nonhomogeneity finds expression in the experience of an opposition between
space that is sacred-the only real and really existing space- and all other
space, the formless expanse surrounding it.
Mircea
Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane;The Nature of Religion; The Significance of
Religious Myth, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture, New York 1961
religious
experience of the nonhomogeneity of space is a primordial
experience,homologizable to a founding of the world. It is not a matter of
theoretical speculation, but of a primary religious experience that precedes
all perception of the world. For it is the break effected in space that allows
the world to be constituted, because it reveals the fixed point, the central
axis for all future orientation.
Mircea
Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane;The Nature of Religion; The Significance of
Religious Myth, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture, New York 1961
When
the sacred manifests itself in any hierophany, there is not only a break in the
homogeneity of space; there is also revelation of an absolute reality, opposed
to the nonreality of the vast surrounding expanse. The manifestation of the
sacred ontologically founds the world. In the homogeneous and infinite expanse,
in which no point of reference is possible and hence no orientatior' can be
established, the hierophany reveals an absolute fixed point, a center. So it is
clear to what a degree the discovery-that is, the revelation-of a sacred space
possesses existential value for religious man; for nothing can begin, nothing
can be done, without a previous orientation-and any orientation implies
acquiring a fixed point. It is for this reason that religious man has always
sought to fix his abode at the center of the world. If the world is to be lived
in, it must be founded-and no world can come to birth in the chaos of the
homogeneity and relativity of profane space. The discovery or projection of a
fixed point-the center-is equivalent to the creation of the world; and we shall
soon give some exampIes that will unmistakably show the cosmogonic value of the
ritual orientation and construction of sacred space.
Mircea
Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane;The Nature of Religion; The Significance of
Religious Myth, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture, New York 1961
For
profane experience, on the contrary, space is homogeneous and neutral; no break
qualitatively differentiates the various parts of its mass. Geometrical space
can be cut and delimited in any direction; but no qualitative differentiation
and, hence, no orientation are given by virtue of its inherent structure. We
need only remember how a classical geometrician defines space. Naturally, we
must not confuse the concept of homogeneous and neutral geometrical space with
the experience of profane space, which is in direct contrast to the experience
of sacred space and which alone concerns our investigation. The concept of
homogeneous space and the history of the concept (for it has been part of the
common stock of philosophical and scientific thought since antiquity) are a
wholly different problem, upon which we shall not enter here. What matters for
our purpose is the experience of space known to nonreligious man- that is, to a
man who rejects the sacrality of the world, who accepts only a profane
existence, divested of all religious presuppositions.
Mircea
Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane;The Nature of Religion; The Significance of
Religious Myth, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture, New York 1961
profane
existence is never found in the pure state. To whatever degree he may have
desacralized the world, the man who has made his choice in favor of a profane
life never succeeds in completely doing away with religious behavior. (..) even
the most desacralized existence still preserves traces of a religious
valorization of the world.
Mircea
Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane;The Nature of Religion; The Significance of
Religious Myth, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture, New York 1961
Revelation
of a sacred space makes it possible to obtain a fixed point and hence to
acquire orientation in the chaos of homogeneity, to found the world and to
live in a real sense. The profane experience, on the contrary, maintains the
homogeneity and hence the relativity of space. No true orientation is now
possible, for the fixed point no longer enjoys a unique ontological status; it
appears and disappears in accordance with the needs of the day. Properly speaking,
there is no longer any world, there are only fragments of a shattered universe,
an amorphous mass consisting of an infinite number of more or less neutral
places in which man moves, governed and driven by the obligations of an
existence incorporated into an industrial society.
Mircea
Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane;The Nature of Religion; The Significance of
Religious Myth, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture, New York 1961
experience
of profane space still includes values that to some extent recall the
nonhomogeneity peculiar to the religious experience of space. There are, for
example, privileged places, qualitatively different from all others-a man's
birthplace or the scenes of his first love, or certain places in the first foreign
city he visited in youth. Even for the most frankly nonreligious man, all these
places still retain an exceptional, a unique quality; they are the holy
places of his private universe, as if it were in such spots that he had
received the revelation of a reality other than that in which he participates
through his ordinary daily life. (crypto-religious behavior by profane man)
Mircea
Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane;The Nature of Religion; The Significance of
Religious Myth, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture, New York 1961
For
a believer, the church shares in a different space from the street in which it
stands. The door that opens on the interior of the church actually signifies a
solution of continuity. The threshold that separates the two spaces also
indicates the distance between two modes of being, the profane and the
religious. The threshold is the limit, the boundary, the frontier that
distinguishes and opposes two worlds-and at the same time the paradoxical place
where those worlds communicate, where passage from the profane to the sacred
world becomes possible.
Mircea
Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane;The Nature of Religion; The Significance of
Religious Myth, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture, New York 1961
Numerous
rites accompany passing the domestic threshold-a bow, a prostration, a pious
touch of the hand, and so on. The threshold has its guardians-gods and spirits
who forbid entrance both to human enemies and to demons and the powers of
pestilence. It is on the threshold that sacrifices to the guardian divinities
are offered. Here too certain palaeo-oriental cultures (Babylon, Egypt, Israel)
situated the judgment place. The threshold, the door show the solution of
continuity in space immediately and concretely; hence their great religious
importance, for they are symbols and at the same time vehicles of passage from
the one space to the other.
Mircea
Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane;The Nature of Religion; The Significance of Religious
Myth, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture, New York 1961
Within
the sacred precincts the profane world is transcended. On the most archaic
levels of culture this possibility of transcendence is expressed by various
images of an opening ; here, in the sacred enclosure, communication with the
gods is made possible; hence there must be a door to the world above, by which
the gods can descend to earth and man can symbolically ascend to heaven. (...)
properly speaking, the temple constitutes an opening in the upward direction
and ensures communication with the world of the gods.
Mircea
Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane;The Nature of Religion; The Significance of
Religious Myth, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture, New York 1961
Every
sacred space implies a hierophany, an irruption of the sacred that results in
detaching a territory from the surrounding cosmic milieu and making it
qualitatively different. When Jacob in his dream at Haran saw a ladder reaching
to heaven, with angels ascending and descending on it, and heard the Lord
speaking from above it, saying: I am the Lord God of Abraham, he awoke and
was afraid and cried out: How dreadful is this place: this is none other but
the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. And he took the stone
that had been his pillow, and set it up as a monument, and poured oil on the
top of it. He called the place Beth-el, that is, house of God (Genesis,
28,12-19). The symbolism implicit in the expression gate of heaven is rich
and complex; the theophany that occurs in a place consecrates it by the very
fact that it makes it open above- that is, in communication with heaven, the
paradoxical point of passage from one mode of being to another. We shall soon
see even clearer examples-sanctuaries that are doors of the gods and hence
places of passage between heaven and earth.
Mircea
Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane;The Nature of Religion; The Significance of
Religious Myth, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture, New York 1961
Often
there is no need for a theophany or hierophany properly speaking; some sign
suffices to indicate the sacredness of a place. According to the legend, the
marabout who founded El-Hamel at the end of the sixteenth century stopped to
spend the night near a spring and planted his stick in the ground. The next
morning, when he went for it to resume his journey, he found that it had taken
root and that buds had sprouted on it. He considered this a sign of God's will
and settled in that place.'' In such cases the sign, fraught with religious
meaning, introduces an absolute element and puts an end to relativity and
confusion. Something that does not belong to this world has manifested itself
apodictically and in so doing has indicated an orientation or determined a course
of conduct.
Mircea
Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane;The Nature of Religion; The Significance of
Religious Myth, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture, New York 1961
When
no sign manifests itself, it is provoked. For example, a sort of evocation is
performed with the help of animals; it is they who show what place is fit to
receive the sanctuary or the village. This amounts to an evocation of sacred
forms or figures for the immediate purpose of establishing an orientation in
the homogeneity of space. A sign is asked, to put an end to the tension and
anxiety caused by relativity and disorientation-in short, to reveal an absolute
point of support. For example, a wild animal is hunted, and the sanctuary is
built at the place where it is killed. Or a domestic animal-such as a bull-is
turned loose; some days later it is searched for and sacrificed at the place
where it is found. Later the altar will be raised there and the village will be
built around the altar. In all these cases, the sacrality of a place is
revealed by animals. This is as much as to say that men are not free to choose
the sacred site, that they only seek for it and find it by the help of
mysterious signs.
Mircea
Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane;The Nature of Religion; The Significance of
Religious Myth, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture, New York 1961
hierophany
annulls the homogeneity of space and reveals a fixed point
Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane;The Nature of Religion; The Significance of Religious Myth, Symbolism, and Ritual within Life and Culture, New York 1961