Click an area to go there. This is one of many material universes, Brahmāṇḍa, which expand from Mahā Viṣṇu when He breathes.

Hiraṇyagarbha (Devanagari: हिरण्यगर्भः ; literally the 'golden womb' or 'golden egg', poetically rendered 'universal germ') is the source of the creation of the Universe or the manifestedcosmos in Indian philosophy,^[1] it finds mention in one hymn of the Ṛigveda (RV 10.121), known as the 'Hiraṇyagarbha Sūkta', suggesting a single creator deity(verse 8: yo deveṣv ādhi devā eka āsīt, Griffith:"He is the God of gods, and none beside him."), in the hymn identified as Prajāpati The concept golden womb is again mentioned in Viswakarma suktha Rg 10-82.

The Upaṇiṣad calls it the Soul of the Universe or Brahman,^[2]and elaborates that Hiraṇyagarbha floated around in emptiness and the darkness of the non-existence for about a year, and then broke into two halves which formed theSvarga and the Pṛthvi.

In classical Purāṇic Hinduism, Hiraṇyagarbha is a name ofBrahmā, so called because he was born from a golden egg (Manu Smṛti 1.9), while the Mahābhārata calls it the Manifest.^[3]

Post-classical yoga traditions consider Hiranyagarbha as the originator of yoga.^[4][5]

Creation[edit]

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Matsya Purāṇa (2.25-30) gives an account of initial creation. After Mahāprālaya, the great dissolution of the Universe, there was darkness everywhere. Everything was in a state of sleep. There was nothing, either moving or static. Then Svayambhu, Self-manifested Being arose, which is a form beyond senses. It created the primordial waters first and established the seed of creation into it. The seed turned into a golden womb, Hiraṇyagarbha. Then Svayambhu entered in the egg.

The Nārāyaṇa Sūkta exclaims that everything that is, visible or invisible, all this is pervaded by Nārāyaṇa within and without.

The Īśvara Upaniṣad says that the universe is pervaded by Īśvara (God), who is both within and without it. He is the moving and the unmoving, He is far and near, He is within all these and without all these.

The Vedānta Sūtra further states that Brahman is That from Whom this Universe proceeds, in Whom it subsists, and to Whom, in the end, it returns.

The Saṃkhya school holds that there are only two primary principles, Puruṣa and Prākṛti, and creation is only a manifestation or evolution of the constituents of Prākṛti due to the action of Puruṣa's Consciousness.

The Bhagavata states that Nārāyaṇa alone was in the beginning, who was the pious of principles of creation, sustenance, and dissolution (also known as the Hindu Trinity of Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Śiva) - the Supreme Hari, multi-headed, multi-eyed, multi-footed, multi-armed, multi-limbed. This was the Supreme Seed of all creation, subtler than the subtlest, greater than the greatest, larger than the largest, and more magnificent than even the best of all things, more powerful, than even the wind and all the gods, more resplendent than the Sun and the Moon, and more internal than even the mind and the intellect. He is the Creator, the Father Supreme.

The Manu Smriti says: In the beginning, all this existence was one undifferentiated, unmanifested, indefinable, unarguable and unknown in every way. From this condition arose the Universe of 'name and form' (Sanskrit: nāmarūpa), through the medium of the Self-existent Creator, Svayambhu.

The Brethren of Purity (Arabic: اخوان‌الصفا‎ ikhwãn al-safã; also The Brethren of Sincerity) were a secret society^[1] of Muslim philosophers in Basra, Iraq, in the 10th century CE.

The structure of this mysterious organization and the identities of its members have never been clear.^[2][3] Theiresoteric teachings and philosophy are expounded in an epistolary style in the Encyclopedia of the Brethren of Purity (Rasa'il Ikhwan al-safa'), a giant compendium of 52 epistles that would greatly influence later encyclopedias. A good deal of Muslim and Western scholarship has been spent on just pinning down the identities of the Brethren and the century in which they were active.

Name[edit]

The Arabic phrase Ikhwan al-Safa (short for, among many possible transcriptions, Ikhwān aṣ-Ṣafāʾ wa Khullān al-Wafā wa Ahl al-Ḥamd wa abnāʾ al-Majd,^[4] meaning "Brethren of Purity, Loyal Friends, People worthy of praise and Sons of Glory") can be translated as either the "Brethren of Purity" or the "Brethren of Sincerity"; various scholars such as Ian Netton prefer "of Purity" because of the group's ascetic impulses towards purity and salvation.

A suggestion made by Goldziher, and later written about by Philip K. Hitti in his History of Arabs, is that the name is taken from a story in Kalilah wa-Dimnah, in which a group of animals, by acting as faithful friends (ikhwan al-safa), escape the snares of the hunter. The story concerns a ring-dove and its companions who get entangled in the net of a hunter seeking birds. Together, they leave themselves and the ensnaring net to a nearby rat, who is gracious enough to gnaw the birds free of the net; impressed by the rat's altruistic deed, a crow becomes the rat's friend. Soon a tortoise and gazellealso join the company of animals. After some time, the gazelle is trapped by another net; with the aid of the others and the good rat, the gazelle is soon freed, but the tortoise fails to leave swiftly enough and is himself captured by the hunter. In the final turn of events, the gazelle repays the tortoise by serving as a decoy and distracting the hunter while the rat and the others free the tortoise. After this, the animals are designated as the "Ikwhan al-Safa".

This story is mentioned as an exemplum when the Brethren speak of mutual aid in one rasa'il, a crucial part of their system of ethics that has been summarized thus:

In this Brotherhood, self is forgotten; all act by the help of each, all rely upon each for succour and advice, and if a Brother sees it will be good for another that he should sacrifice his life for him, he willingly gives it.^[5]

The Dionysian Mysteries were a ritual of ancient Greece and Rome which used intoxicants and other trance-inducing techniques (like dance and music) to remove inhibitions and social constraints, liberating the individual to return to a natural state. It also provided some liberation for those marginalized by Greek society: women, slaves and foreigners. In their final phase the Mysteries shifted their emphasis from a chthonic, underworld orientation to a transcendental, mystical one, with Dionysus changing his nature accordingly (similar to the change in the cult of Shiva). By its nature as a mystery religion reserved for the initiated, many aspects of the Dionysian cult remain unknown and were lost with the decline of Greco-Roman polytheism; our knowledge is derived from descriptions, imagery and cross-cultural studies.

Contents

  [hide] 

• 1 Origins
• 2 Early Dionysus cult
  • 2.1 Role of wine
  • 2.2 Rites
• 3 Emergence and evolution
  • 3.1 Male initiation rituals
  • 3.2 Female initiation rituals
    • 3.2.1 Villa of the Mysteries
  • 3.3 Roman Empire
• 4 Mystery and public rites
• 5 Temple and officers
• 6 Ritual details
  • 6.1 Dionysian paraphernalia
  • 6.2 Traditional offerings to Dionysus
  • 6.3 Animals sacred to Dionysus
• 7 Invocation of Dionysus (from Orphic hymns)
• 8 See also
• 9 References
• 10 Further reading

Origins[edit]

The Derveni krater, height : 90.5 cm (35 ½ in.), 4th century BC

The Dionysian Mysteries of mainland Greece and the Roman Empire are thought to have evolved from a more primitive initiatory cult of unknown origin (perhaps Thracian or Phrygian) which had spread throughout the Mediterranean region by the start of the Classical Greek period. Its spread was associated with the dissemination of wine, a sacrament or entheogenwith which it appears always to have been closely associated (though mead may have been the original sacrament). Beginning as a simple rite, it evolved quickly within Greek culture into a popular mystery religion, which absorbed a variety of similar cults (and their gods) in a typically Greek synthesis across its territories; one late form was the Orphic Mysteries. However, all stages of this developmental spectrum appear to have continued in parallel throughout the easternMediterranean until late in Greek history and forcible Christianization.

Orphic Zagreus[edit]

According to the followers of Orphism,^[7] Zeus had lain with Persephone—who, by the tradition ascribed to Orpheus, was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter^[8]—in the form of a serpent. The result of their union was Zagreus.

Zeus had intended Zagreus to be his heir, but a jealous Hera persuaded the Titans to kill the child. Like the infant Zeus in Cretan myth, the child Zagreus was entrusted to the Titans who distracted him with toys. While he gazed into a mirror they tried to seize him and he fled, changing into various animal forms in his attempt to escape. Finally he took the form of a bull, and in that form they caught him, tore him to pieces, and devoured him.

Zeus, discovering the crime, hurled a thunderbolt at the Titans, turning them to ashes, but Persephone (or in some accounts Athena,Rhea, or Hermes) managed to recover Zagreus' heart. From the ashes of the Titans, mixed with the divine flesh they had eaten, came humankind; this explains the mix of good and evil in humans, the story goes, for humans possess both a trace of divinity as well as the Titans' maliciousness.^[9]

Zeus implanted the still-beating heart into the mortal woman Semele, from whom the child was eventually born again, despite Hera's intervention. Some accounts say that he was reassembled and resurrected by Demeter; others, that Zeus fed his heart to Semele in a drink, making her pregnant with Dionysus.

In Orphic tradition, Persephone was the mother of Zagreus (Dionysus) by Zeus; in the Iliad, Persephone's consort Hades, king of the underworld, is called Zeus Katachthonios, "Underground Zeus". In Hesiod's Theogony and the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Zeus granted that Hades could abduct Persephone,^[10] suggesting that their roles are sometimes interchangeable. Both Zeus and Poseidon were occasionally consorts of Demeter. "Underworld Zeus" is linked with Demeter by Hesiod.^[11] It is this that has generated some suggestions that Zagreus may be a son of Persephone with her husband Hades. The name Zagreus is also an old epithet of Hades.

Derveni papyrus It dates to around 340 BC
The text is a commentary on a hexameter poem ascribed to Orpheus. Fragments of the poem are quoted. The poem begins with the words "Close the doors, you uninitiated", a famous admonition to secrecy, recounted by Plato. The theogony described in the poem has Nyx (Night) give birth to Heaven (Uranus), who becomes the first king. Cronus follows and takes the kingship from Uranus, but he is likewise succeeded by Zeus.
Zeus, having "heard oracles from his father", goes to the sanctuary of Night, who tells him "all the oracles which afterwards he was to put into effect." Upon hearing them, Zeus "swallowed the phallus [of the king Uranus] who first had ejaculated the brilliance of heaven."[4]

Orphism (more rarely Orphicism) (Ancient Greek: Ὀρφικά) is the name given to a set of religious beliefs and practices^[1] originating in the ancient Greek and the Hellenistic world,^[2] as well as by the Thracians,^[3] associated with literature ascribed to the mythical poet Orpheus, who descended into Hades and returned. Orphics also revered Persephone (who annually descended into Hades for a season and then returned) and Dionysus or Bacchus (who also descended into Hades and returned). Orpheus was said to have invented the Mysteries of Dionysus.^[4] Poetry containing distinctly Orphic beliefs has been traced back to the 6th century BC^[5] or at least 5th century BC, and graffiti of the 5th century BC apparently refers to "Orphics".^[6]

Classical sources, such as Plato, refer to "Orpheus-initiators" (Ὀρφεοτελεσταί), and associated rites, although how far "Orphic" literature in general related to these rites is not certain.^[7] As in the Eleusinian mysteries, initiation into Orphic mysteries promised advantages in the afterlife.

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Orphism
Maieutics is an evolution of the technical methods of Orphism.  Maieutics consists in the belief that there is somehow a knowledge that is stored in the mind by tradition and the experience of past generations. Therefore, maieutics invites the individual to discover the truth that is latent in a person.

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Peculiarities[edit]

The main elements of Orphism differed from popular ancient Greek religion in the following ways:

• by characterizing human souls as divine and immortal but doomed to live (for a period) in a "grievous circle" of successive bodily lives through metempsychosis or the transmigration of souls.
• by prescribing an ascetic way of life which, together with secret initiation rites, was supposed to guarantee not only eventual release from the "grievous circle" but also communion with god(s).
• by warning of postmortem punishment for certain transgressions committed during life.
• by being founded upon sacred writings about the origin of gods and human beings.

Compare with Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism and Gnosticism.