308 David Displeased the Lord 309 What Will it Take for God to Get Your Atten...
A shared spiritual origin in celtic europe and indo aryan indian .
1. A Shared Spiritual Originin CelticEurope and Indo-
Aryan India?
The word Aryan immediately has many controversial
connotations. Merely speaking the word “Aryan” in
most Western countries will conjure the image of Nazis
and a flaxenhaired, blue eyed people from the north.
Yet the reality is that the Aryans (if they did exist as a
singular people) were most likelyfrom West Asia, not
Northern Europe, and that Aryans were a Hindu topic
for thousands of years before the Nazis came along.
2. The reason why people associate Hindu spiritual
concepts like the Swastika and Aryans with the Nazis is
because the Nazis appropriated many historical Hindu
concepts. Even the swastika that is now famous as a
Nazi symbol, was historicallya Hindu symbol of well
being. The root of the word itself “su” (good) and asti
(to be) is a phrase describing well being. In Northern
India, the Swastika can still be seen as a prominent
symbol today.
So who were the Aryans really? In a historicalsense, the
word refers to a wave of Indo-European people who
immigrated to the Indian subcontinent during the Iron
Ages. In Sanskrit the word itself means “noble.”
While the Indo-Aryans mentioned in the Hindu Rig Veda
are a very controversial topic, there are a few reasons
why I would like to talk about them today. In the study
of Pre-ChristianSpirituality, there are many uncanny
similarities betweenHindu and European Pre-Christian
mythos and culture – particularlyamong the Celtic
people. Why is this? One answer is that the people in the
Ancient World were communicating with one another
more than modern folks give them credit. Cleopatra
wore Chinese silks and Buddhist statues have been
found in Norse homes. Believe it or not, each culture did
not live in its own bubble.
3. Yet the other answer is that there could be a more
direct link between the Pre-ChristianEuropean
spirituality and that of India. This is the theory that
during the Iron Ages, the nomadic Indo-Aryan people
dispersed in two different directions – west to Europe
and south east to India. The Celts themselves are said to
have descended upon Europe from Central Europe or
West Asia during the Iron Ages.
While this is still just a historical theory, I do think it is
at least worth an in depth discussion.
SIMILARITIES IN SOCIAL STRUCTURE
4.
5. First, there are the similarities betweenthe spiritual
structure of Hindu and Celticsociety. Both were highly
hierarchicalsocieties with a “priest, peasant, warrior”
type caste system, where the spiritual authorities were
on the top of the social ladder.
Among the Celts, the Druids were the social elite and
among the Hindus were the Brahmins. The very name
“Druid” is composed of two Celticword roots which
have parallels in Sanskrit. In Sanskrit, the root for
knowledge “vid” appears in the word “veda.” The Celtic
root “dru” which means “immersion” also appears in
6. Sanskrit. So a Druid theoreticallyis one who is
“immersed in knowledge” (Druidism and the Ancient
Religions of India).
In both societies, Brahmins and Druids weren’t just
mere priests, they were a social caste. Among the Celts,
the Druids were a complete intellectualcaste
comprising of judges, lawyers, medical doctors,
ambassadors, historians, etc. The Brahmin caste more
or less was the same in this respect.
SIMILARITIES IN SPIRITUAL LANGUAGE:
Peter Beresford-Ellis in his essay ‘Early Irish Astrology:
An Historical Argument’ also highlights another
fascinating parallel:
‘Boudi and the stem budh appear in all the Celtic
languages. It means – all victorious, gift of teaching,
accomplished, exulted, virtue and so forth. In Breton
today, for example, boud means ‘to be’. You will see the
stem in the name Bouddica, more commonly referred to
in English as Boadicea,the Celticwarrior queen of the
Iceni who led an uprising against Roman rule in 60 AD
The important thing is that the word occurs in Sanskrit
and Buddha is the past participle of the stem budh, to
know or enlightened. This is the title given to
Sakyamuni Gautama – the Enlightened One. What is
important is that in the Vedas the planet Mercury is also
known as budh.’ [Beresford-Ellis in the same article
notes: The idea that these ‘signposts’ might lead to the
7. fact that ancient Celtic astrology and Vedic astrology
also had a common link, another surviving parallel,was
thrown into sharp relief by a small gloss on a 9th
Century Irish manuscript at Wurzburg. The word budh
was glossed by ‘point of fire’ and ‘planet Mercury’.]
Here are other examples of a similar vocabulary:
Old Irish – arya (freeman),Sanskrit – aire (noble)
Old Irish – naib (good), Sanskrit – noeib (holy)
Old Irish – badhira (deaf), Sanskrit – bodhar (deaf)
Old Irish – names (respect), Sanskrit – nemed (respect)
Old Irish – righ (king), Sanskrit – raja (king)
(Source: Hindu Wisdom)
SIMILARITIES IN MYTHOLOGY:
Some of the examples listed in this section are from
the Bards, Ovates and Druids website.
In terms of mythologicalsimilarities, there is a striking
similarity between the Norse and Hindu concept of
world creation. The Purusha Sukta, a hymn in the Rig
Veda, states that all things were created from the
mangled limbs of the titan Purusha. In Norse Mythology,
8. the belief is that the world was made from the body
parts of the titan Ymir.
The Twenty-Seven Star-Wives of King Aillil:
‘Celtic cosmology is a parallelto Vedic cosmology.
Ancient Celtic astrologers used a similar system based
on twenty-seven lunar mansions, called nakshatras in
Vedic Sanskrit. Like the Hindu Soma, King Ailillof
Connacht, Ireland, had a circular palace constructed
with twenty-seven windows through which he could
gaze on his twenty-seven “star wives.”
There survives the famous first century bce Celtic
calendar (the Coligny Calendar) which, as soon as it was
first discovered in 1897, was seen to have parallelsto
Vedic calendricalcomputations.’ Early Irish Astrology:
An Historical Argument by Peter Berresford Ellis.
(Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids)
The Horned God – Cernunnos, Shiva or Pashupati?
“For a long time the Gundestrop Cauldron has been
hailed as one of the most beautiful examples of Celtic
art, made in Thrace but found in Denmark. It is now
considered possible that the image of the horned god is
that of Pasupati, a Shiva prototype, found in the early
Indus Valley civilization.Certainly a seal from the
ancient city of Mohenjodaro in the Indus Valley looks
remarkably likethe scene depicted on the cauldron.
Compare the cauldronimage below with that of the
Pasupati figure from Mohenjodaro, 2300-1750
BC.” (Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids)
9. Shiva Pashupati (seal discovered during excavationof
the Mohenjodaro archaeologicalsite).
Pashupati means “Lord of Animals” in the Sanskrit
language.
10. This is an image of the Gaulish/CelticGod horned God
Cernunnos. Cernunnos is also a God of the hunt and
animals.
This image itself was found in Denmark on the
Gundestrup Cauldronwhich dates around 200 BC to
300 AD. What is interesting is the yogic posture that this
God is sitting in. Or this could merely be a
representation of the Celtic culture, since Classical
writers report that the ancient Gaulic Celts did not sit
on chairs, but were usually found sitting on the ground,
either in a crouching position or cross legged.
Danu and River Deities
Among the ancient Celts, Danu was regarded as the
“Mother Goddess.” The Irish Gods and Goddesses were
11. the Tuatha De Danaan (“Children of Danu”). Danu was
the “divine waters,” which fell from heaven and
nurtured Bíle, the sacred oak from whose acorns their
children sprang.
Moreover, the waters of Danu went on to create the
great Celticsacred river–“Danuvius”, which today
is calledthe Danube. Many European rivers bear the
name of Danu–the Rhône (ro- Dhanu, “Great Danu”) and
several rivers are called Don.
Rivers were sacred in the Celticworld, and places
where votive offerings were deposited and burials often
conducted. The Thames, which flows through London,
still bears its Celticname, from Tamesis, the “dark
river”, which is the same name as Tamesa, a tributary of
the Ganges.
Not only is the story of Danu and the Danube a parallel
to that of Ganga and the Ganges, but a Hindu “Danu”
appears in the Vedic story “The Churning of the
Oceans,” a story with parallels in Irish and Welsh
mytholgy. Danu in Sanskrit also means “divine waters”
and “moisture.” (SOURCE: Hindu Wisdom).
Trinity Gods
14. Hindu Trinity
Gods with three aspects are popular among both the
Celticand Puranic Hindu spiritual traditions. In
Hinduism, there is the obvious trinity of Brahma (The
Creator), Vishnu (The Preserver) and Shiva (The
Destroyer). Among the Gaulish Celts there is the triune
God Lugus. There is a theory that his three aspects are
Esus (The Respected one), Toutatis (Protector) and
Taranis (God of Thunder). I’m not saying there is a
direct parallelbetween these two trinities, I’m just
saying that the similarities are interesting to
observe. The CelticGoddess Brigid is also a triune deity
of warfare, healing and smithing.
BELIEF IN REBIRTH AND TRANSMIGRATION OF THE
SOUL
It is well known that Hindus believe in Reincarnationas
well as the idea of karma. While our understandings of
the Celtic afterlife are less wellknown, there is evidence
that the Celts believed in reincarnationfor their heroes.
There is also a great deal of shape shifting in Celtic myth
in which people go through various animal forms.