I 5 § The Zodiac and the Cardinal Points
In a book on castes, A. M. Hocart calls attention to the fact that 'in the organisation of the city, the four groups are located at the different cardinal points inside the quadrangular or circular precinct'. This allocation is not peculiar to India; many examples of it are to be found among the most diverse peoples; and most often each cardinal point is placed in correspondence with one of the elements and one of the seasons, as well as with an emblematic colour of the caste there located. [1] In India, the Brahmins occupied the North, the Kshatriyas the East, Vaisyas the South, and Shūdras the West. There was in this way a division into 'quarters' in the strict sense of the term which originally and obviously designated a quarter, that is, one fourth of a city, even though in modern usage this signification seems to have been forgotten more or less completely. It goes without saying that this repartition is closely related to the more general question of orientation which, as is well known, played an important part in all the ancient traditional civilisations, for a city as a whole as well as for each particular edifice.
Hocart is at a loss, however, to explain the proper localisation of each of the four castes. [2] His confusion ultimately stems from nothing but his error of considering the royal caste, the Kshatriyas, as the highest. Proceeding then
from the East, he cannot find any regular order of succession and, in particular, the situation of the Brahmins at the North becomes completely unintelligible. On the contrary, there is no difficulty if we keep to the normal order, that is, if we begin with the caste which really is the highest, the Brahmins. We must then proceed from the North, and turning in the direction of the pradakshina, [3] we find the four castes following one another in a perfectly regular order. It remains only to understand more thoroughly the symbolic reasons for this repartition according to the cardinal points.
These reasons are based essentially on the fact that the traditional plan of the city is an image of the Zodiac; and this brings us straight back to the correspondence of the cardinal points with the seasons: as we have explained elsewhere, the winter solstice corresponds to the North, the vernal equinox to the East, the summer solstice to the South, and the autumnal equinox to the West. In the division into 'quarters', each of these must naturally correspond to the group formed by three of the twelve zodiacal signs: one of the solstitial or equinoctial signs, which can be called 'cardinal' signs, and the two signs adjacent to it. There will be three signs included, therefore, in each quadrant if the form of the precinct is circular, or on each side if it is quadrangular. This last form, moreover, is particularly appropriate to a city because it expresses an idea of stability which is appropriate to a fixed and permanent establishment, and also because what is involved is not the celestial Zodiac itself but only an image and a kind of terrestrial projection of it. No doubt it was for analogous reasons that the ancient astrologers drew their horoscopes in a square form in which each side was likewise occupied by three zodiacal signs; [4] we will come again to this disposition in what follows.
It will now be clear that the distribution of the castes in the city follows exactly the march of the annual cycle, which normally begins at the winter solstice. It is true that certain traditions make the year begin at another solstitial or equinoctial point, but these cases involve traditional forms with a more particular relationship to certain secondary cyclical periods. The question does not arise in the Hindu tradition which represents the most direct continuation of the Primordial Tradition and which, moreover, especially insists on the division of the annual cycle into its two ascending and descending halves, opening respectively the two solstitial 'gates' of winter and summer which, in fact, is the strictly fundamental point of view in this respect. On the other hand, the North, which is considered as the uppermost point (uttara) and which thus marks the starting point of the tradition, pertains quite naturally to the Brahmins. The Kshatriyas are placed at the point which comes next in the cyclical correspondence, that is, at the East, the direction of the rising sun. By comparing these two positions it can be quite legitimately inferred that, while the character of the priesthood is 'polar', that of the royalty is 'solar', which many other symbolic considerations would confirm still further; and perhaps
this solar character is not unrelated to the fact that the Avatäras of historical times have come from the Kshatriya caste. The Vaisyas, coming in third place, take their place at the South and mark the end of the succession of the 'twice-born' castes; there remains for the Shūdras only the West, which is everywhere regarded as the direction of darkness.
All this is perfectly logical, therefore, on the one condition that there be no mistake as to the point of departure; and in order to justify more thoroughly what has been said about the 'zodiacal' nature of the traditional layout of cities, we will now cite several facts which show that if their division responds mainly to the quaternary division of the cycle, there are cases where a twelvefold subdivision was clearly indicated. We have an example of this in the foundation of cities according to the rite that the Romans received from the Etruscans. The orientation was marked by two roads at right angles, the cardo running from South to North, and the decumanus running from West to East. At the extremities of these two roads were the gates of the city which thus were situated exactly at the four cardinal points. The city was accordingly divided into four quarters which, none the less, in this case did not correspond precisely to the four cardinal points as in India, but rather to the intermediary points. It goes without saying that it is necessary to take into account the difference of the traditional forms, which require diverse adaptations, but the principle of the division is no less the same. Moreover, and this is the point that must be emphasized here, there was superimposed on this division into quarters, a division into 'tribes', that is, according to the etymological sense of the word, a ternary division. Each of the three 'tribes' comprised four curias distributed in the four quarters so that there was altogether a twelvefold division.
Another example is that of the Hebrews, which Hocart himself cites, though he does not seem to take note of the importance of the number twelve. 'The Hebrews', he says, [5] were familiar with social division into four quarters; their twelve territorial tribes were divided into four groups of three tribes, one of each being a principal tribe. Judah camped to the East, Ruben to the South, Ephraim to the West, and Dan to the North. The Levites formed an inner circle around the Tabernacle, and were also divided into four groups placed at the four cardinal points, the chief branch being to the East'. [6] Actually there is no question here of the organisation of a city but at first that of a camp, and later the allocation of the territory of a whole country; but obviously this makes no difference at all from our present standpoint. The difficulty, in establishing an exact comparison with what exists elsewhere, derives from the apparent absence of definite social functions assigned to each of the tribes, a fact which precludes their being assimilated to castes in the strict sense. Nevertheless, on at least one point there is a very clear similarity with the disposition adopted in India, for the royal tribe, that of Judah, also was placed to the East. On the other hand, there was also a remarkable difference: the sacerdotal tribe, that of Levi,
was not counted among the twelve, did not have a place on the sides of the quadrilateral, and in consequence no territory could be assigned to it for its own. Its situation in the inner part of the camp can be explained by the fact that it was expressly attached to the service of a single sanctuary which at first was the Tabernacle, the normal position of which was at the centre. However that may be, all that concerns us in the present instance is the fact that the twelve tribes were distributed by threes on the four sides of a quadrilateral facing towards the four cardinal points; and it is generally known that there was, in fact, a symbolic correspondence between the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve signs of the Zodiac, which leaves no doubt as to the nature and significance of the distribution in question. We will simply add that the chief tribe on each side manifestly corresponds to one of the four 'cardinal' signs, the two others corresponding to the two adjacent signs.
If reference is now made to the apocalyptic description of the 'celestial Jerusalem', is is easy to see that its plan exactly reproduces that of the camp of the Hebrews of which we have just spoken; and at the same time, this plan is also identical to the square horoscope mentioned above. The city, which is in fact built in a square, has twelve gates on which are inscribed the names of the twelve tribes of Israel; and these gates are distributed in the same way on the four sides: 'three gates to the East, three to the North, three to the South, and three to the West'. It is obvious that these twelve gates correspond moreover to the twelve zodiacal signs, the four chief gates, that is, those in the middle of each of the four sides, corresponding to the solstitial and equinoctial signs; and the twelve aspects of the Sun relate to each of the signs, that is, to the twelve Ādityas of the Hindu tradition, appearing under the form of the twelve fruits of the Tree of Life which, placed at the centre of the city, 'gives its fruits each month', that is, precisely according to the successive positions of the Sun in the Zodiac in the course of the annual cycle. This city, 'descending from heaven to earth', thus represents clearly enough, at least in one of its significations, the projection of the celestial 'archetype' into the constitution of the terrestrial city; and no doubt enough has already been said to show that this 'archetype' is symbolised essentially by the Zodiac.