THE OMPHALOS AND THE SACRED STONES
ACCORDING to Ossendowski's report, the 'Lord of the World' formerly appeared several times in India and in Siam, 'blessing the people with a golden apple surmounted with a lamb'. This is an extremely important detail when it is compared with Saint-Yves's description of the 'cycle of the Lamb and the Ram'. [1] It is even more remarkable that there exist in Christian symbolism innumerable representations of the Lamb on a mountain from which flow down four rivers that are clearly identical with those four rivers of Terrestrial Paradise. [2] As already mentioned, Agarttha possessed a different name before the onset of the Kali-Yuga; it was called Paradesha, which in Sanskrit means 'supreme country', and which applies well to the spiritual centre par excellence, also called the 'Heart of the World'. It is the word from which the Chaldeans formed Pardes, and Westerners Paradise. Such is the original sense of this last word, which should make it clear why, in one form or another, it always signifies the same thing as the Pardes of the Hebrew Kabbalah. On summing up what has been discussed about the symbolism of the 'Pole', it is not difficult to understand that the mountain of Terrestrial Paradise is the
same as the 'polar mountain'. Almost every tradition has its name for this mountain, such as the Hindu Meru, the Persian Alborj, and the Montsalvat of Western Grail legend. There is also the Arab mountain Qaf [3] and the Greek Olympus, which has in many ways the same significance. This consists of a region that, like the Terrestrial Paradise, has become inaccessible to ordinary humanity, and that is beyond the reach of those cataclysms which upset the human world at the end of certain cyclic periods. This region is the authentic 'supreme country' which, according to certain Vedic and Avestan texts, was originally sited towards the North Pole, even in the literal sense of the word. Although it may change its localization according to the different phases of human history, it still remains polar in a symbolic sense because essentially it represents the fixed axis around which everything revolves.
Before the advent of the Kali-Yuga, the mountain naturally figured as the 'centre of the world'; that is to say it existed somewhat openly, and had not yet gone underground. Accordingly, this corresponds to what one may call a normal period, and was outside those special conditions imposed by an occluded period wherein a sort of reversal of established order is imposed. It must be added that apart from the considerations of cyclical laws, the symbols of the mountain and the cave have each their own reason for being, and are truly complementary; [4] in addition, the cavern may be envisaged as being situated inside the mountain itself or immediately beneath it.
There are other symbols in ancient traditions which represent the 'centre of the world', one of the most remarkable and widely spread of which is that of the Omphalos. [5] In Greek the
word signifies 'umbilical', but in a general sense describes everything that is central, and in particular the hub of a wheel. The Sanskrit nabhi has the same connotations, as do various words in the Germanic and Celtic languages derived from the same root, found in the forms ' nab ' and 'nav'. [6] In Gaelic, 'nav' or 'naf', which is plainly identical with these, carries the sense of 'chief' and is even applied to God; so it is indeed the idea of a central Principal that is being expressed. [7] The meaning of 'hub' is particularly important to this issue as the wheel universally symbolizes the world rotating around a fixed point - a symbolism also associated with the swastika. In the latter, however, the circumference is not delineated in order to give an immediate indication of the centre: the swastika is not an image of the World, but of the action of the Principle in relation to the World.
The symbol of the Omphalos could be placed in a position that was simply the centre of a particular area - the spiritual centre, of course, rather than the geographical one, although in certain cases these might coincide. If the latter was the case, the place was indeed, for the people who inhabited the region in question, the physical image of the 'centre of the world', in the same way as their own tradition was an adaptation of the primordial tradition expressed in a form that suited best their mentality and conditions of existence. The bestknown Omphalos is the one in the temple at Delphi, the temple that was the genuine spiritual centre for all ancient Greece. [8]
Without enumerating all the reasons for making this assertion, it should be noted that there assembled twice yearly at Delphi the Council of Amphictyons, which consisted of representatives from all the Hellenic peoples and which in fact provided the only effective link between these peoples. The strength of this bond lay in its essentially traditional character.
The material representation of the Omphalos usually consisted of a sacred stone, commonly called [in French] a 'betyle', a word apparently none other than the Hebrew Beith-El or 'House of God'.* This name was the name given by Jacob to the place where the Lord manifested Himself to him in a dream: 'And Jacob awoke from his sleep and said; "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not." And he was afeared and said: "How awesome is this place! It is the house of God and the door to Heaven." And Jacob arose early in the morning and took with him the stone on which he had laid his head, made it into a pillar and poured oil over it to consecrate it. And he named this place Beith-El, but the first name of this place was "Luz".' [9] It is said that Beith-El, 'the House of God', subsequently became Beith-Lehem, 'House of Bread', the town where Christ was born. [10] The symbolic relationship existing between stone and bread is always worth examining, [11] and it
should be made clear that Beith-El applies not only to the place but to the stone itself: 'And this stone that I have raised as a pillar will be the house of God. [12] Thus, this stone must be the true 'divine habitation' (mishkan), the seat of the Shekinah, although the designation was later transferred to the Tabernacle. All this relates naturally to the subject of 'spiritual influences' (berakoth), so that when the 'cult of stones', common to so many ancient peoples, is mentioned, it can be seen at once that is was not the stones themselves that were worshipped but the Divinity residing in them.
The stone representing the Omphalos could take the form of a pillar, like Jacob's. It is very likely that some of the 'menhirs' of the Celts had the same significance; oracles were uttered in association with them, as at Delphi, which is easily understood if it is seen that they were the abode of the Divinity. The 'House of God' is naturally identifiable with the 'Centre of the World'. The Omphalos could also have been represented, like the black stone of Cybele, by a conical shape where the cone represents the 'sacred mountain', symbol of the 'pole' or 'Axis of the World'. Another version was an ovoid, which would bring it into direct relationship with another extremely important symbol, the 'Egg of the World'. [13] While the Omphalos was usually depicted by a stone, it sometimes took the form of a mound or sort of tumulus, again an image of the sacred mountain. In China, for example, a mound or hillock in the shape of a quadrangular pyramid was built in the centre of every kingdom or feudal state, made out of earth brought from the 'five regions'. Its four sides corresponded to the four
cardinal points and its summit to the centre itself. [14] Strangely enough, these 'five regions' were also to be found in Ireland, where the 'Chiefs standing stone' was in a similar way erected in the middle of each domain. [15]
Among Celtic nations it is Ireland that provides the most data about the Omphalos; the country was formerly divided into five kingdoms, one of which was called Mide, nowadays Anglicized as 'Meath', from the ancient Celtic word medion, or 'middle', identical to the Latin medius. [16] The kingdom of Mide has been formed by deducting portions of land from the other four kingdoms and became, through prerogative, the property of Ireland's supreme king, to whom the other monarchs were subordinate. [17] There was a gigantic stone at Uisneach* - the exact centre of the country - called both the 'navel of the earth' and 'stone of portions' (ail-na-meeran), because it marked the place where the dividing boundaries of the four older kingdoms converged inside the kingdom of Mide. There, a general assembly was held annually on i May, that was very like the annual reunion of the Druids at their 'consecrated place', medio-lanon or medio-nemeton in Gaul in the country of the Carnutes. The similarity with the assembly of the Amphictyons at Delphi is clear.
Ireland's division into four kingdoms, plus its central region where the supreme ruler resided, was a legacy of very ancient tradition. It was this arrangement that caused Ireland to be named the 'Island of the four masters', [18] though this title and its synonym, 'Green Isle' or Erin, had originally been used to denote another, much more northerly, land called Ogygia or rather Thule, now unknown, perhaps vanished, which was once one of the principal spiritual centres, if not, during a
certain cycle, the supreme one. The memory of this 'island of four masters' is also to be found, although previously unnoticed, in the Chinese tradition, contained in a Taoist text: 'The emperor Yao took a great deal of trouble, and sincerely believed he had reigned in an ideal way. However, after his visit to the four masters on the distant island of Ku-shih' inhabited by 'real men', chenjen, those who have been restored to their 'primordial state' - 'he realized that he had spoilt everything. The ideal, he discovered, consists of the indifference (or rather the detachment in action that is nonaction) of the superior man [19] who allows the cosmic wheel to turn. [20] In another interpretation, the 'four masters' are identified with the four maharajas or 'great kings' who, in Indian and Tibetan traditions, preside at the four cardinal points. [21] They correspond at the same time to the elements. The supreme Master, the fifth, who resides in the centre, on the sacred mountain, represents the ether, Akasha, the 'quintessence' or quinta essentia of the Hermeticists, which is the primordial element from which proceed the other four. [22] Analogous traditions are also to be found in Central America.