Monday, December 20, 2010

Contract, Honesty & Harmony

Long, long before Christmas, the winter solstice was celebrated as the birth of the pagan god Mithras - the "patron of contracts": the very word means "contract" in Old Persian. And the "Unconquered Sun" lies in that little word:
“Mithras stood for Contract, and therefore for fairness, therefore for Justice, therefore for honesty, therefore for Truth, therefore for light, therefore for The Sun.”
The above quote is from Paul Kriwaczek's In Search of Zarathustra: The First Prophet and the Ideas that Changed the World - a wonderful history intermingled with travelogue written by a former BBC television programme-maker with special interest in Central and South Asian affairs. Kriwaczek is a Jew from Vienna - who successfully fled the Nazis and was raised and schooled in London
Mithra is the "Unconquered Sun" - born during the winter solstice because that is when days start getting longer. This time of the year was celebrated 2000 years before Christ.]

The same Vedic Mitra representing Harmony, the domain of Mahalakshmi. [TNM]

No comments:

Post a Comment