THE TEARS OF QUETZALCOATL
FINGER PRINTS OF THE GODS Graham Hancock 1995 Page 153 Adventures in the Underworld, Journeys to the Stars "In Egypt's early dynastic period more than 4500 years ago, an 'Ennead' of nine omnipotent deities was particularly adored by the priesthood at Heliopolis.5 Likewise in Central America, both the Aztecs and the Mayas believed in an all-powerful system of nine deities"
"The majority of the traditions of the God-King Quetzalcoatl, as we have seen, focus on his deeds and teaching as a civilizer. His followers in ancient Mexico, however, also believed that his human manifestation had experienced death and that afterwards he was reborn as a star.9"
MEXICO X I COME
ESOTERIC O SECRET I SECRET O ESOTERIC ESOTERIC 6 SECRET 9 SECRET 6 ESOTERIC ESOTERIC O SECRET I SECRET O ESOTERIC
http://theosophy.org/tlodocs/teachers/Quetzalcoatl.htm QUETZALCOATL "What does your mind seek? Beyond is the place where one lives. No, O Lord of the Close Vicinity, Cantares Mexicanos "No one outside the adyta of initiation can know the ultimate origins of American Indian spirituality, and only a few have penetrated the veil of metaphor and symbol constituting the core of Nahuatl literature. No one knows how many, if any, of those who still speak the Nahuatl tongue, spoken by the Aztecs before them and already richly developed in the time of the earliest Toltecs, really fathom the inner meaning of its startling profusion of juxtaposed images, symbolic descriptions and ethereal allusions. The Nahuatl mind found truth only in "flowers and songs", in intuitive apprehension, and entirely dispensed with delusive dichotomies and mechanistic categories. Only the barest lineaments of the history of the Aztecs, latest of the major pre-Columbian civilizations in Meso-America, are known. The peoples before them are immersed in an obscurity dimly illuminated here and there by legend and archaeological discovery. Ancient Mexico and the lands immediately south of it are, as H.P. Blavatsky said, "a land of mystery". Yet within that lost continent is to be found Quetzalcoatl, one of the iridescent spiritual impulses of poorly recorded history. Quetzalcoatl emblazoned a trail through human thought and culture that could not be effaced by the indifference of the rapacious conquistador and the ruthless zeal of the Inquisition."
Tlamatini - Wikipedia Tlamatini (plural tlamatinime) is a Nahuatl language word meaning "someone who knows something", generally translated as "wise man". The word is analyzable as derived from the transitive verb mati "to know" with the prefix tla- indicating an unspecified inanimate object translatable by "something" and the derivational suffix -ni meaning "a person who are characterized by ...": hence tla-mati-ni "a person who is characterized by knowing something" or more to the point "a knower".[1] The famous Nahuatl language translator and interpreter Miguel León-Portilla refers to the tlamatini as philosophers and they are the subject of his book Aztec Thought and Culture.[2][3]
Tlamatinime - ThroneWorld 3 Oct 2009 - The world humans experience is the nahual -- the “disguise” or “mask” -- of the reality of teotl, the “house of paintings”, not the nelli -- rooted, true, authentic -- cosmos. The wisdom of the tlamatinime permits them to see beyond the illusion or dreamlike world to the teotl itself.
Aztec Philosophy | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Nahua tlamatinime ("knowers of things," "sages," "philosophers;" tlamatini [singular]) do not appear to have analyzed philosophical thought in these terms.
A Companion to Latin American Philosophy - Google Books Result https://books.google.co.uk/books?isbn=1118610563
TLAMATINI SOMEONE WHO KNOWS SOMETHING
http://theosophy.org/tlodocs/teachers/Quetzalcoatl.htm QUETZALCOATL "The earliest American high culture known to history was that developed by the Toltecs, whose name in Nahuatl means 'master craftsmen'. They built the great city of Tollan, a sacred precinct laid out to mirror and intimate the mysteries of existence. Tollan, literally 'metropolis', became the prototype of later cities which bore its name as well as specific names of their own. Tollan was the magnificent Teotihuacan which was recognized as the source of Nahuatl civilization, and Quetzalcoatl was the spiritual source of the earthly Tollan. Like Osiris in Egypt, Quetzalcoatl was a divine king who taught all the arts and sciences. Like Prometheus, he gave mankind sacred keys to wisdom. He is the spiritual progenitor of the tlamatinime, the wise men who were the priests and preservers of divine knowledge. The wise maintain a light, a torch, a stout torch Codice Matritense The priest who through purity and insight emerged foremost amongst his peers was given the name Quetzalcoatl, reminiscent of the Egyptian Initiate who earned the epithet Hermes Trismegistus. He is a mirror of the world and of the Divine, "pierced on both sides", so that the transcendent shines forth upon the world and man sees beyond the immanent through the wise man. The tlamatini mirrors the primordial and aeviternal activity of Quetzalcoatl, the divine sage, high priest and inner being of humanity. Quetzalcoatl's ineluctably numinous nature, a mystery impenetrable to theological and mythological analysis, abides in his role as the bridge between ontological levels and between pairs of opposites within each level. The duality essential to manifestation is constrained by and unified in Quetzalcoatl. Thus, to explain the intertwined and enigmatic functions of this man-god, mythographers have been compelled to import the Sanskrit concept of avatara. Surviving fragments of myth, legend and history provide a tantalizingly incomplete mosaic of a priest-king and spiritual principle omnipresent in Nahuatl thought and life. Accounts of his functions and activities seem confused and contradictory, most likely because the keys to levels of interpretation perished with the silent tlamatinime. Nonetheless, Quetzalcoatl, believed to have incarnated as a righteous priest-king in Tollan, was first a metaphysical principle involved in the primordial creative emanation of the world. Ometeotl is the great god who abides forever in the twelfth and thirteenth heavens. In the highest realm, he alone is unaffected by the emergence and dissolution of the cosmos. In the twelfth heaven, Omeyocan (the Realm of Duality), he is "Our Mother and Our Father, Ometeotl-Omecihuatl, who is Dual Lord and Dual Lady", the first cause. Our Lord, Lord of the Ring, The appearance and passing of worlds is the work of hierarchies of divine beings who operate in strict obedience to the universal law, the will of Ometeotl. Yet he also dwells in the centre of the cosmos and on every plane of being as Xiuhtecuhtli, the Lord of Fire and Time. As Mother-Father, the Dual Lord confirms the connection of a soul to the body engendered by conception. In this role, he sits on high with his consort, his feminine self, and Quetzalcoatl sits between them, for Quetzalcoatl creates the connection willed by Ometeotl. As Ometeotl is the heart of manifestation, Quetzalcoatl is the heart of the dual Ometeotl. Within the vast unfoldment of cosmos, the world has emerged five times through five rebirths of the sun. Whilst some say the fifth sun is the last, others suggest that there will be seven suns, and still others hint at the possibility of twelve suns. Each sun has come into existence through the sacrifice of a god, just as Ometeotl must sacrifice his utter transcendence to become the dual first cause. Tezcatlipoca, son of Ometeotl, sacrificed himself in the cosmic fire so that the Sun of Night and of Earth might arise. Represented by the jaguar or tiger, the raw forces of this world were sterile from an evolutionary standpoint and therefore perished. Quetzalcoatl sacrificed himself to produce the second world, the Sun of Air, but its purely spiritual powers could not sustain form. Creatures of this world who corresponded to human beings in the world of the fifth sun became monkeys. Tlaloc, Lord of Rain, immolated himself in the cosmic fire to give birth to the Sun of Rain and Fire, but the volcanic intensity of this world allowed only birds to survive, though during its existence the prototype of maize was grown. Chalchiuhtlicue, life-giving goddess of waters, offered herself so that the fourth Sun of Waters might appear. Whilst men consumed the acicintli seed, it could not grow in water alone, and the world perished in a universal deluge. Two gods volunteered themselves in the fiery sacrifice to create the fifth sun. The divine hearth was constructed at Teotihuacan, the centre of what would be the fifth world. After suitable ritual preparations were made and the gods had purified themselves, the moment came to approach the fire. Tecuciztecatl, Lord of the Snails, who had arrogantly claimed primacy, could not muster the courage to enter the cosmic fire. Nanahuatzin or Nanahuatl, the god whose form is diseased, who therefore understood the pain of limitation and imperfection, stepped forward and threw himself on the pyre. Shamed by such detachment, Tecuciztecatl followed him as the moon (which Tecuciztecatl became) follows the sun. The sun did not rise immediately, however, and the gods became anxious in the oppressive darkness. Quetzalcoatl, however, divined the locus of the sunrise and proceeded to the east. There he welcomed the rising sun as Lord of the Dawn and, when the sun wobbled uncertainly on its rising course, steadied it as god of wind. Thus, the fifth sun is called Nahui Ollin, Four Movement, Naollin, the synthesis of the four elements through dynamic interaction, the Sun of Quetzalcoatl, who as movement is the active ingredient of the ever-changing balance which sustains – and is – life. Its symbol is the human face, the countenance signifying life and intelligence, self-conscious will or choice in the service of unalterable cosmic law, that mystic promise of immortality within necessary dissolution that alone can mirror unmanifest eternity. Its glyph includes the four transient elements and three aspects of divine creativity, arranged as a quincunx that points to both the Fourth Round and Fifth Root Race. In his Promethean aspect Quetzalcoatl is involved in the creation of human beings and in inspiring them with intelligence. Before Naollin's roseate splendour had burst into full day and brought the present world to light, Quetzalcoatl had to descend into the realm of the dead, Mictlan, to secure the precious bones of man so that humans might again inhabit the earth. In Mictlan, the realm of the fleshless, he confronted Mictlantecuhtli and Mictlancihuatl, Lord and Lady of the Land of the Dead, the 'masks' or reflections of Ometeotl and Omecihuatl in the lowest sphere of duality, beyond which is unknowable darkness, just as there is the Unknown above Omeyocan, the highest heaven. When Quetzalcoatl demanded the bones, Mictlantecuhtli offered them on condition that Quetzalcoatl sound the conch-shell and circle the kingdom four times. Whilst this seemed to be a genuine challenge, the shell had no sounding-hole and was ever mute. Quetzalcoatl called upon the worms to pierce the shell, and bees entered through the hole and made it sound. Whilst appearing to yield possession of the bones, Mictlantecuhtli called upon the forces of the underworld to prevent Quetzalcoatl from fulfilling his charge. Mirroring this deception, Quetzalcoatl sent his double, nahualli, who is Xolotl, his twin and another aspect of himself, to inform the Lord of the Dead that the bones would be left in Mictlan. Even whilst this message was being delivered, Quetzalcoatl gathered the bones of Man and Woman and fled. The forces of the underworld did not pursue Quetzalcoatl directly; they had prepared a trap. Quetzalcoatl fell into the trap and lost consciousness for a time. When he recovered, he found the bones damaged and in disarray. Crying out to his nahualli, he asked, "What shall I do now?" His twin gave the pre-ordained response: "Since things have turned out badly, let them turn out as they may." And as soon as he arrived, the woman called Quilaztli, who is Cihuacoatl, took them to grind and put them in a precious vessel of clay. Upon them Quetzalcoatl bled his member. The other gods and Quetzalcoatl himself did penance. And they said, "People have been born, O gods, the macehuales – those 'deserved' into life through penance." Because for our sake, the gods did penance! Manuscript of 1558 Within this mysterious allegory one can see the failure of nature alone to produce intelligent men, the gathering of the lower vestures and their animation with the breath of life within the body of clay, as well as the penitential self-sacrifice of the gods, represented by the seminal blood and signifying the incarnation of the spiritual and divine within the prepared living human form. Once this complex process was completed, Quetzalcoatl stole maize, the proper food of self-consciously intelligent beings, and gave it to humanity. Under Naollin, the fifth sun, Quetzalcoatl is the dynamic order of Nature, the homoeostasis in which humanity can flourish. Celestially, he guards the Milky Way, 'the Luminous Petticoat of Stars'. Tezcatlipoca, son of Ometeotl, became the four Tezcatlipocas who guard the four quarters of the world. In the west this fourfold hypostasis is Quetzalcoatl, whilst in the east he is the red Tezcatlipoca, the two constituting the tension between birth and death, which is also death in this world of change and birth into the Divine Darkness. The red Tezcatlipoca is also Xolotl, the twin of Quetzalcoatl, the other half of one ceaseless activity. In the atmosphere which blankets the fertile earth, Quetzalcoatl is the wind and the water it bears in the air. He is also lightning, sudden illuminator of darkness, who, like an ambassador, precedes Tlaloc, the god of rain. His multivalent functions are intimated in the deliberate ambiguity of his name: Quetzalcoatl is derived from quetzal, 'feathered' or 'precious', and coati, 'serpent' or 'twin'. Thus he is both the Plumed Serpent and the Precious Twin. In tlalticpac, the dream world which is earth, Quetzalcoatl is the divine king who, like Osiris, the second divine pharaoh of Egypt, brought civilization to humanity. As the divine ruler in Tollan, he taught all the arts and sciences, from cultivation of maize to metallurgy and from astrology to poetry, as well as the sacred tlilli tlapalli, red and black ink, that is, writing and, by extension, wisdom. During the golden age he dwelt in his invisible form, guiding and governing in a kingdom of innocent joy. Yet the forces of limitation, shadows in this realm of light, plotted Quetzalcoatl's downfall. Tezcatlipoca took a mirror and invited Quetzalcoatl to gaze into it. To his horror, he thereby gained a body, rather like Anthropos, and seeing himself reflected in the mirror of inchoate Nature, became one with it, according to the Hermetic tradition. In his confusion he allowed a mask and feathered head-dress to be made for him, so that people might look upon him without fear. Whilst he was disoriented, demons made pulque, a fermented drink from sap of the maguey, and gave it to Quetzalcoatl. Thus intoxicated, he took Quetzalpetatl, his feminine aspect from which he now felt alienated, and slept with her, falling afterwards into a stupor. As the archetype of humanity, his deeds brought pain and suffering to humanity – the pain of having a body, the suffering of loneliness, the disharmonies of striving, contention, fear and guilt, which pit person against person and turn the powers of human consciousness into instruments of selfishness and its inevitable offspring, conflict and greed. In the morning Quetzalcoatl awoke filled with grief and remorse. As god, he knew the unavoidable problems of incarnation, but as king, he saw the massive failure of civilization. Between potentiality and actualization fell the dread shadow of self-induced ignorance. Within the architectonics of human life, the problems of creating man had been wholly reflected, and thus Quetzalcoatl's earthly work was completed. He resolved to leave his beautiful Tollan and set out with his closest devotees. He journeyed throughout his kingdom, leaving at different sites marks of his presence – a sacred footprint here, a raised stone there – and stripped himself of his arts and powers as he went so that these might remain with humanity in his absence. He ordered a stone casket to be made, and when it was finished he lay in it for four days so that his most precious secrets might be absorbed into it. When he was ready, he ordered the stone box sealed up to prevent theft or contamination of its contents. Only those who have redeemed Quetzalcoatl's wisdom through severe penance and self-sacrifice can hope to know the contents of that mystic sarcophagus now secreted in the human breast, in the place of purity where Quetzalcoatl was accustomed to bathing. All work finished, Quetzalcoatl went to the sea. When he reached the holy sea Annals of Cuauhtitlan There at Tlillin Tlapallin, the place of burning, he built a huge pyre, mounted it and set it aflame. His ashes rose into the air and the rarest birds of the earth appeared. As the red flames lit up the celestial vault, Quetzalcoatl became again the Lord of the Dawn. When the ashes had ceased to burn,
"The heart of Quetzalcoatl became Venus, the morning star which promises first the dawn, then the rising sun itself."
THIS SERPENT I PRESENT
Kukulkan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Kukulkan Plumed Serpent", "Feathered Serpent") is the name of a Maya snake deity that also serves to designate historical persons. The depiction of the ... Kukulkan From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Kukulkan at Chichen Itza during the Equinox. The famous descent of the snake. March 2009 The Classic Maya vision serpent, as depicted at Yaxchilan. Although heavily Mexicanised, Kukulkan has his origins among the Maya of the Classic Period, when he was known as Waxaklahun Ubah Kan (/waʃaklaˈχuːn uːˈɓaχ kän/), the War Serpent, and he has been identified as the Postclassic version of the Vision Serpent of Classic Maya art.[3] The cult of Kukulkan/Quetzalcoatl was the first Mesoamerican religion to transcend the old Classic Period linguistic and ethnic divisions.[4] This cult facilitated communication and peaceful trade among peoples of many different social and ethnic backgrounds.[4] Although the cult was originally centred on the ancient city of Chichén Itzá in the modern Mexican state of Yucatán, it spread as far as the Guatemalan highlands.[5] In Yucatán, references to the deity Kukulkan are confused by references to a named individual who bore the name of the god. Because of this, the distinction between the two has become blurred.[6] This individual appears to have been a ruler or priest at Chichen Itza, who first appeared around the 10th century.[7] Although Kukulkan was mentioned as a historical person by Maya writers of the 16th century, the earlier 9th-century texts at Chichen Itza never identified him as human and artistic representations depicted him as a Vision Serpent entwined around the figures of nobles.[8] At Chichen Itza, Kukulkan is also depicted presiding over sacrifice scenes.[9] Sizeable temples to Kukulkan are found at archaeological sites throughout the north of the Yucatán Peninsula, such as Chichen Itza, Uxmal and Mayapan.[7]
QUETZALCOATL THIS SERPENT I PRESENT
Quetzalcoatl - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quetzalcoatl Quetzalcoatl /ˌkɛtsɑːlˈkoʊɑːtəl is a Mesoamerican deity whose name comes from the Nahuatl language and means feathered serpent". The worship of a ... Quetzalcoatl in feathered serpent form as depicted in the Codex Telleriano-Remensis In the Postclassic period (900–1519 AD), the worship of the feathered serpent deity was based in the primary Mexican religious center of Cholula. It is in this period that the deity is known to have been named "Quetzalcoatl" by his Nahua followers. In the Maya area he was approximately equivalent to Kukulcan and Gukumatz, names that also roughly translate as "feathered serpent" in different Mayan languages. In the era following the 16th-century Spanish Conquest, a number of sources were written that conflate Quetzalcoatl with Ce Acatl Topiltzin, a ruler of the mythico-historic city of Tollan. It is a matter of much debate among historians to which degree, or whether at all, these narratives about this legendary Toltec ruler describe historical events.[4] Furthermore, early Spanish sources written by clerics tend to identify the god-ruler Quetzalcoatl of these narratives with either Hernán Cortés or St. Thomas—an identification which is also a source of diversity of opinions about the nature of Quetzalcoatl.[5] Among the Aztecs, whose beliefs are the best-documented in the historical sources, Quetzalcoatl was related to gods of the wind, of Venus, of the dawn, of merchants and of arts, crafts and knowledge. He was also the patron god of the Aztec priesthood, of learning and knowledge.[6] Quetzalcoatl was one of several important gods in the Aztec pantheon, along with the gods Tlaloc, Tezcatlipoca and Huitzilopochtli.
..
GOD OF NAMES 99 NAMES OF GOD
Tlamatini - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlamatini Tlamatini (plural tlamatinime) is a Nahuatl language word meaning "someone who knows something", generally translated as "wise man". The word is ... Tlamatini From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Tlamatini (plural tlamatinime) is a Nahuatl language word meaning "someone who knows something", generally translated as "wise man". The word is analyzable as derived from the transitive verb mati "to know" with the prefix tla- indicating an unspecified inanimate object translatable by "something" and the derivational suffix -ni meaning "a person who are characterized by ...": hence tla-mati-ni "a person who is characterized by knowing something" or more to the point "a knower".[citation needed] [edit] References
SOMEONE WHO KNOWS SOMETHING
Tlamatini - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlamatini Tlamatini (plural tlamatinime) is a Nahuatl language word meaning "someone who knows something", generally translated as "wise man". The word is ... Tlamatini From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Tlamatini (plural tlamatinime) is a Nahuatl language word meaning "someone who knows something", generally translated as "wise man". The word is analyzable as derived from the transitive verb mati "to know" with the prefix tla- indicating an unspecified inanimate object translatable by "something" and the derivational suffix -ni meaning "a person who are characterized by ...": hence tla-mati-ni "a person who is characterized by knowing something" or more to the point "a knower".[citation needed]
SOMEONE WHO KNOWS SOMETHING
FINGER PRINTS OF THE GODS Graham Hancock 1995 Page 153 Adventures in the Underworld, Journeys to the Stars "In Egypt's early dynastic period more than 4500 years ago, an 'Ennead' of nine omnipotent deities was particularly adored by the priesthood at Heliopolis.5 Likewise in Central America, both the Aztecs and the Mayas believed in an all-powerful system of nine deities" "The majority of the traditions of the God-King Quetzalcoatl, as we have seen, focus on his deeds and teaching as a civilizer. His followers in ancient Mexico, however, also believed that his human manifestation had experienced death and that afterwards he was reborn as a star.9"
THE FEATHERED SERPENT
Viracocha Inca - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viracocha_Inca Viracocha (in hispanicized spelling) or Wiraqucha was the eighth Sapa Inca of the Kingdom of Cusco (beginning around 1410) and the third of the Hanan ... Reign?: ?c.1410–1438 Successor?: ?Pachacuti Quechua?: ?Wiraqucha Father?: ?Yawar Waqaq
FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS A QUEST FOR THE BEGINNING AND THE END Graham Hancock 1995 Page 98 An artificial language "Another possible legacy of Tiahuanaco, and of the Viracochas, lay embedded in the language spoken by the local Aymara Indians - a language regarded by some specialists as the oldest in the world. In the 1980s Ivan Guzman de Rojas, a Bolivian computer scientist, accidentally demonstrated that Aymara might be not only very ancient but, significantly, that it might be a `made-up' language — something deliberately and skilfully designed. Of particular note was the seemingly artificial character of its syntax, which was rigidly structured and unambiguous to an extent thought inconceivable in normal 'organic' speech.' This synthetic and highly organized structure meant that Aymara could easily be transformed into a computer algorithm to be used to translate one language into another 'The Aymara Algorithm is used as a bridge language. The language of an original document is translated into Aymara and then into any number of other languages.' Part II Was, it just coincidence that an apparently artificial language governed by a computer-friendly syntax should be spoken today in the environs of Tiahuanaco? Or could Aymara be a legacy of the high learning that legend attributed to the Viracochas? If so, what other Legacies might there be? What other incomplete fragments of an old and forgotten wisdom might be lying scattered around — fragments which had perhaps contributed to the richness and diversity of many of the cultures that had evolved in this region during the i 0,000 years before the conquest? Perhaps it was the possession of fragments like these that had made possible the drawing of the Nazca lines and enabled the predecessors of the Incas to build the `impossible' stone walls at Machu Picchu and Sacsayhuaman?
MAYA YAMA AYMARA MARA RAMA MARA ARAMYA AMAY AYAM AYMARA RA MAYA MAYA RA AYMARA
THE FEATHERED SERPENT
INTERNET SITE http://theosophy.org/tlodocs/teachers/Quetzalcoatl.htm QUETZALCOATL "What does your mind seek? Beyond is the place where one lives. No, O Lord of the Close Vicinity, Cantares Mexicanos "No one outside the adyta of initiation can know the ultimate origins of American Indian spirituality, and only a few have penetrated the veil of metaphor and symbol constituting the core of Nahuatl literature. No one knows how many, if any, of those who still speak the Nahuatl tongue, spoken by the Aztecs before them and already richly developed in the time of the earliest Toltecs, really fathom the inner meaning of its startling profusion of juxtaposed images, symbolic descriptions and ethereal allusions. The Nahuatl mind found truth only in "flowers and songs", in intuitive apprehension, and entirely dispensed with delusive dichotomies and mechanistic categories. Only the barest lineaments of the history of the Aztecs, latest of the major pre-Columbian civilizations in Meso-America, are known. The peoples before them are immersed in an obscurity dimly illuminated here and there by legend and archaeological discovery. Ancient Mexico and the lands immediately south of it are, as H.P. Blavatsky said, "a land of mystery". Yet within that lost continent is to be found Quetzalcoatl, one of the iridescent spiritual impulses of poorly recorded history. Quetzalcoatl emblazoned a trail through human thought and culture that could not be effaced by the indifference of the rapacious conquistador and the ruthless zeal of the Inquisition."
"The earliest American high culture known to history was that developed by the Toltecs, whose name in Nahuatl means 'master craftsmen'. They built the great city of Tollan, a sacred precinct laid out to mirror and intimate the mysteries of existence. Tollan, literally 'metropolis', became the prototype of later cities which bore its name as well as specific names of their own. Tollan was the magnificent Teotihuacan which was recognized as the source of Nahuatl civilization, and Quetzalcoatl was the spiritual source of the earthly Tollan. Like Osiris in Egypt, Quetzalcoatl was a divine king who taught all the arts and sciences. Like Prometheus, he gave mankind sacred keys to wisdom. He is the spiritual progenitor of the tlamatinime, the wise men who were the priests and preservers of divine knowledge. The wise maintain a light, a torch, a stout torch Codice Matritense The priest who through purity and insight emerged foremost amongst his peers was given the name Quetzalcoatl, reminiscent of the Egyptian Initiate who earned the epithet Hermes Trismegistus. He is a mirror of the world and of the Divine, "pierced on both sides", so that the transcendent shines forth upon the world and man sees beyond the immanent through the wise man. The tlamatini mirrors the primordial and aeviternal activity of Quetzalcoatl, the divine sage, high priest and inner being of humanity. Quetzalcoatl's ineluctably numinous nature, a mystery impenetrable to theological and mythological analysis, abides in his role as the bridge between ontological levels and between pairs of opposites within each level. The duality essential to manifestation is constrained by and unified in Quetzalcoatl. Thus, to explain the intertwined and enigmatic functions of this man-god, mythographers have been compelled to import the Sanskrit concept of avatara. Surviving fragments of myth, legend and history provide a tantalizingly incomplete mosaic of a priest-king and spiritual principle omnipresent in Nahuatl thought and life. Accounts of his functions and activities seem confused and contradictory, most likely because the keys to levels of interpretation perished with the silent tlamatinime. Nonetheless, Quetzalcoatl, believed to have incarnated as a righteous priest-king in Tollan, was first a metaphysical principle involved in the primordial creative emanation of the world. Ometeotl is the great god who abides forever in the twelfth and thirteenth heavens. In the highest realm, he alone is unaffected by the emergence and dissolution of the cosmos. In the twelfth heaven, Omeyocan (the Realm of Duality), he is "Our Mother and Our Father, Ometeotl-Omecihuatl, who is Dual Lord and Dual Lady", the first cause. Our Lord, Lord of the Ring, The appearance and passing of worlds is the work of hierarchies of divine beings who operate in strict obedience to the universal law, the will of Ometeotl. Yet he also dwells in the centre of the cosmos and on every plane of being as Xiuhtecuhtli, the Lord of Fire and Time. As Mother-Father, the Dual Lord confirms the connection of a soul to the body engendered by conception. In this role, he sits on high with his consort, his feminine self, and Quetzalcoatl sits between them, for Quetzalcoatl creates the connection willed by Ometeotl. As Ometeotl is the heart of manifestation, Quetzalcoatl is the heart of the dual Ometeotl. Within the vast unfoldment of cosmos, the world has emerged five times through five rebirths of the sun. Whilst some say the fifth sun is the last, others suggest that there will be seven suns, and still others hint at the possibility of twelve suns. Each sun has come into existence through the sacrifice of a god, just as Ometeotl must sacrifice his utter transcendence to become the dual first cause. Tezcatlipoca, son of Ometeotl, sacrificed himself in the cosmic fire so that the Sun of Night and of Earth might arise. Represented by the jaguar or tiger, the raw forces of this world were sterile from an evolutionary standpoint and therefore perished. Quetzalcoatl sacrificed himself to produce the second world, the Sun of Air, but its purely spiritual powers could not sustain form. Creatures of this world who corresponded to human beings in the world of the fifth sun became monkeys. Tlaloc, Lord of Rain, immolated himself in the cosmic fire to give birth to the Sun of Rain and Fire, but the volcanic intensity of this world allowed only birds to survive, though during its existence the prototype of maize was grown. Chalchiuhtlicue, life-giving goddess of waters, offered herself so that the fourth Sun of Waters might appear. Whilst men consumed the acicintli seed, it could not grow in water alone, and the world perished in a universal deluge. Two gods volunteered themselves in the fiery sacrifice to create the fifth sun. The divine hearth was constructed at Teotihuacan, the centre of what would be the fifth world. After suitable ritual preparations were made and the gods had purified themselves, the moment came to approach the fire. Tecuciztecatl, Lord of the Snails, who had arrogantly claimed primacy, could not muster the courage to enter the cosmic fire. Nanahuatzin or Nanahuatl, the god whose form is diseased, who therefore understood the pain of limitation and imperfection, stepped forward and threw himself on the pyre. Shamed by such detachment, Tecuciztecatl followed him as the moon (which Tecuciztecatl became) follows the sun. The sun did not rise immediately, however, and the gods became anxious in the oppressive darkness. Quetzalcoatl, however, divined the locus of the sunrise and proceeded to the east. There he welcomed the rising sun as Lord of the Dawn and, when the sun wobbled uncertainly on its rising course, steadied it as god of wind. Thus, the fifth sun is called Nahui Ollin, Four Movement, Naollin, the synthesis of the four elements through dynamic interaction, the Sun of Quetzalcoatl, who as movement is the active ingredient of the ever-changing balance which sustains – and is – life. Its symbol is the human face, the countenance signifying life and intelligence, self-conscious will or choice in the service of unalterable cosmic law, that mystic promise of immortality within necessary dissolution that alone can mirror unmanifest eternity. Its glyph includes the four transient elements and three aspects of divine creativity, arranged as a quincunx that points to both the Fourth Round and Fifth Root Race. In his Promethean aspect Quetzalcoatl is involved in the creation of human beings and in inspiring them with intelligence. Before Naollin's roseate splendour had burst into full day and brought the present world to light, Quetzalcoatl had to descend into the realm of the dead, Mictlan, to secure the precious bones of man so that humans might again inhabit the earth. In Mictlan, the realm of the fleshless, he confronted Mictlantecuhtli and Mictlancihuatl, Lord and Lady of the Land of the Dead, the 'masks' or reflections of Ometeotl and Omecihuatl in the lowest sphere of duality, beyond which is unknowable darkness, just as there is the Unknown above Omeyocan, the highest heaven. When Quetzalcoatl demanded the bones, Mictlantecuhtli offered them on condition that Quetzalcoatl sound the conch-shell and circle the kingdom four times. Whilst this seemed to be a genuine challenge, the shell had no sounding-hole and was ever mute. Quetzalcoatl called upon the worms to pierce the shell, and bees entered through the hole and made it sound. Whilst appearing to yield possession of the bones, Mictlantecuhtli called upon the forces of the underworld to prevent Quetzalcoatl from fulfilling his charge. Mirroring this deception, Quetzalcoatl sent his double, nahualli, who is Xolotl, his twin and another aspect of himself, to inform the Lord of the Dead that the bones would be left in Mictlan. Even whilst this message was being delivered, Quetzalcoatl gathered the bones of Man and Woman and fled. The forces of the underworld did not pursue Quetzalcoatl directly; they had prepared a trap. Quetzalcoatl fell into the trap and lost consciousness for a time. When he recovered, he found the bones damaged and in disarray. Crying out to his nahualli, he asked, "What shall I do now?" His twin gave the pre-ordained response: "Since things have turned out badly, let them turn out as they may." And as soon as he arrived, the woman called Quilaztli, who is Cihuacoatl, took them to grind and put them in a precious vessel of clay. Upon them Quetzalcoatl bled his member. The other gods and Quetzalcoatl himself did penance. And they said, "People have been born, O gods, the macehuales – those 'deserved' into life through penance." Because for our sake, the gods did penance! Manuscript of 1558 Within this mysterious allegory one can see the failure of nature alone to produce intelligent men, the gathering of the lower vestures and their animation with the breath of life within the body of clay, as well as the penitential self-sacrifice of the gods, represented by the seminal blood and signifying the incarnation of the spiritual and divine within the prepared living human form. Once this complex process was completed, Quetzalcoatl stole maize, the proper food of self-consciously intelligent beings, and gave it to humanity. Under Naollin, the fifth sun, Quetzalcoatl is the dynamic order of Nature, the homoeostasis in which humanity can flourish. Celestially, he guards the Milky Way, 'the Luminous Petticoat of Stars'. Tezcatlipoca, son of Ometeotl, became the four Tezcatlipocas who guard the four quarters of the world. In the west this fourfold hypostasis is Quetzalcoatl, whilst in the east he is the red Tezcatlipoca, the two constituting the tension between birth and death, which is also death in this world of change and birth into the Divine Darkness. The red Tezcatlipoca is also Xolotl, the twin of Quetzalcoatl, the other half of one ceaseless activity. In the atmosphere which blankets the fertile earth, Quetzalcoatl is the wind and the water it bears in the air. He is also lightning, sudden illuminator of darkness, who, like an ambassador, precedes Tlaloc, the god of rain. His multivalent functions are intimated in the deliberate ambiguity of his name: Quetzalcoatl is derived from quetzal, 'feathered' or 'precious', and coati, 'serpent' or 'twin'. Thus he is both the Plumed Serpent and the Precious Twin. In tlalticpac, the dream world which is earth, Quetzalcoatl is the divine king who, like Osiris, the second divine pharaoh of Egypt, brought civilization to humanity. As the divine ruler in Tollan, he taught all the arts and sciences, from cultivation of maize to metallurgy and from astrology to poetry, as well as the sacred tlilli tlapalli, red and black ink, that is, writing and, by extension, wisdom. During the golden age he dwelt in his invisible form, guiding and governing in a kingdom of innocent joy. Yet the forces of limitation, shadows in this realm of light, plotted Quetzalcoatl's downfall. Tezcatlipoca took a mirror and invited Quetzalcoatl to gaze into it. To his horror, he thereby gained a body, rather like Anthropos, and seeing himself reflected in the mirror of inchoate Nature, became one with it, according to the Hermetic tradition. In his confusion he allowed a mask and feathered head-dress to be made for him, so that people might look upon him without fear. Whilst he was disoriented, demons made pulque, a fermented drink from sap of the maguey, and gave it to Quetzalcoatl. Thus intoxicated, he took Quetzalpetatl, his feminine aspect from which he now felt alienated, and slept with her, falling afterwards into a stupor. As the archetype of humanity, his deeds brought pain and suffering to humanity – the pain of having a body, the suffering of loneliness, the disharmonies of striving, contention, fear and guilt, which pit person against person and turn the powers of human consciousness into instruments of selfishness and its inevitable offspring, conflict and greed. In the morning Quetzalcoatl awoke filled with grief and remorse. As god, he knew the unavoidable problems of incarnation, but as king, he saw the massive failure of civilization. Between potentiality and actualization fell the dread shadow of self-induced ignorance. Within the architectonics of human life, the problems of creating man had been wholly reflected, and thus Quetzalcoatl's earthly work was completed. He resolved to leave his beautiful Tollan and set out with his closest devotees. He journeyed throughout his kingdom, leaving at different sites marks of his presence – a sacred footprint here, a raised stone there – and stripped himself of his arts and powers as he went so that these might remain with humanity in his absence. He ordered a stone casket to be made, and when it was finished he lay in it for four days so that his most precious secrets might be absorbed into it. When he was ready, he ordered the stone box sealed up to prevent theft or contamination of its contents. Only those who have redeemed Quetzalcoatl's wisdom through severe penance and self-sacrifice can hope to know the contents of that mystic sarcophagus now secreted in the human breast, in the place of purity where Quetzalcoatl was accustomed to bathing. All work finished, Quetzalcoatl went to the sea. When he reached the holy sea Annals of Cuauhtitlan There at Tlillin Tlapallin, the place of burning, he built a huge pyre, mounted it and set it aflame. His ashes rose into the air and the rarest birds of the earth appeared. As the red flames lit up the celestial vault, Quetzalcoatl became again the Lord of the Dawn. When the ashes had ceased to burn, "The heart of Quetzalcoatl became Venus, the morning star which promises first the dawn, then the rising sun itself."
GOD OF NAMES 99 NAMES OF GOD
Staff God - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staff_God The Staff God is a major deity in Andean cultures. Usually pictured holding a staff in each hand, with fanged teeth and splayed and clawed feet, his other ... Staff God From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Staff God is a major deity in Andean cultures. Usually pictured holding a staff in each hand, with fanged teeth and splayed and clawed feet, his other characteristics are unknown, although he is often pictured with snakes in his headdress or clothes. The oldest known depiction of the Staff God was found on some broken gourd fragments in a burial site in the Pativilca River Valley (Norte Chico region) and carbon dated to 2250BC. This makes it the oldest image of a god to be found in the Americas.
Oldest evidence of Andean religion found : Nature News www.nature.com/news/2003/030415/full/news030414-4.html 15 Apr 2003 - The 4,000-year-old carving of the Staff god - a fanged creature with splayed feet, holding a snake and a staff - is on a bowl made from a seed ... God carved on gourd points to cradle of Peruvian culture. Hannah Hoag The staff god is also depicted on a gateway at Tiwanaku. Archaeologists have found the oldest image yet of an Andean religious icon. The 4,000-year-old carving of the Staff god - a fanged creature with splayed feet, holding a snake and a staff - is on a bowl made from a seed pod. The artefact was probably a funeral offering, hinting that organized religion was established in South America one-and-a-half millennia earlier than suspected1. Until now, the oldest depiction of the Staff god dated to 1,000 BC. The image appears on textiles and pottery urns of the Wari and Tiwanaku cultures dating all the way through to 1000 AD. The deity is best known from the carved gateway at Tiwanaku, near Lake Titicaca, a city that thrived around 200 AD. "The Staff god has been through many different incarnations," says Jonathan Haas of the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois. Haas' team unearthed the softball-sized gourd at a burial ground in Peru's Patavilca River valley. It has been radiocarbon-dated to 2500 BC. "No one thought that Andean religion itself would date back that far," says Haas. The icon's age hints that a complex Andean civilization with politics, ceremonies and religion radiated from a single location, the team argues. "It's a great find," agrees Peruvian archaeologist Abelardo Sandoval of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC. "My major concern would be about the date," says Sandoval. If other objects from the site show similar dates, the claim will be more reliable, he explains. The burial site lies near the modern town of Barranca in the Norte Chico region of the Peruvian Coast. Twenty-six urban centres have been found here, including Caral, a tiny village of short pyramids called platform mounds in the Supe Valley2, that dates back to 2627 BC. "The region is rewriting Andean history," says Haas. Before Norte Chico, only a handful of scattered sites were known, and archaeologists believed Andean culture emerged in a piecemeal fashion. "This is the unfolding of Andean civilization outwards." References
OUR LORD THE FLAYED ONE
I THE FLAYED ONE
A RAINBOW SERPENT PRESENT I PRESENT
Children of Llullaillaco, sacrificed by the Incas 500 years ago. It is believed the Children of Llullaillaco, as they have come to be known, were sacrificed during a ceremony thanking the Inca gods for the annual corn ... www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/
"A mummy of an Inca girl, described as "perfect" by the archaeologists who found her in 1999, has gone on display for the first time in Argentina .
Hundreds of people crowded into a museum in the north-western city of Salta to see "la Doncella", the Maiden. The remains of the girl, who was 15 when she died, were found in an icy pit on top of a volcano in the Andes, along with a younger boy and girl. Researchers believe they were sacrificed by the Incas 500 years ago.
The three were discovered at a height of 6,700m (22,000ft) on Mount Llullaillaco, a volcano in north-west Argentina on the border with Chile. At the time, the archaeologist leading the team, Dr Johan Reinhard, said they appeared "the best preserved of any mummy I've seen". It is believed the Children of Llullaillaco, as they have come to be known, were sacrificed during a ceremony thanking the Inca gods for the annual corn harvest.
'Great mistake' The mummy of la Doncella is on display in a chamber that is filled with cold air that recreates the sub-freezing conditions in which she was found. Visitors told Argentina media they were impressed at the mummy's state of conservation. "I'm amazed," one woman said. "You just expect her at any moment to get up and start talking." But the exhibition has angered several indigenous groups who campaigned to stop the mummy from going on display. Miguel Suarez from the Calchaquies valley tribes in and around Salta told the Associated Press news agency that the exhibit was "a great mistake", adding that he hoped visitors would show respect for the dead."
The civilisation we discuss, which does not appear to have found a need to develop writing, is that of the Incas. The Inca empire which existed in 1532, ... www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/ History topic: Mathematics of the Incas It is often thought that mathematicscan only develop after a civilisation has developed some form of writing. Although not easy for us to understand today, many civilisations reached highly advanced states without ever developing written records. Now of course it is difficult for us to know much about such civilisations since there is no written record to be studied today. This article looks at the mathematical achievements of one such civilisation. The civilisation we discuss, which does not appear to have found a need to develop writing, is that of the Incas. The Inca empire which existed in 1532, before the Spanish conquest, was vast. It spread over an area which stretched from what is now the northern border of Ecuador to Mendoza in west-central Argentina and to the Maule River in central Chile. The Inca people numbered around 12 million but they were from many different ethnic groups and spoke about 20 different languages. The civilisation had reached a high level of sophistication with a remarkable system of roads, agriculture, textile design, and administration. Of course even if writing is not required to achieve this level, counting and recording of numerical information is necessary. The Incas had developed a method of recording numerical information which did not require writing. It involved knots in strings called quipu. The quipu was not a calculator, rather it was a storage device. Remember that the Incas had no written records and so the quipu played a major role in the administration of the Inca empire since it allowed numerical information to be kept. Let us first describe the basic quipu, with its positional number system, and then look at the ways that it was used in Inca society. The quipu consists of strings which were knotted to represent numbers. A number was represented by knots in the string, using a positional base 10 representation. If the number 586 was to be recorded on the string then six touching knots were placed near the free end of the string, a space was left, then eight touching knots for the 10s, another space, and finally 5 touching knots for the 100s. (Illustration omitted) 586 on a quipu. For larger numbers more knot groups were used, one for each power of 10, in the same way as the digits of the number system we use here are occur in different positions to indicate the number of the corresponding power of 10 in that position. Now it is not quite true that the same knots were used irrespective of the position as would be the case in a true positional system. There seems only one exception, namely the unit position, where different styles of knots were used from those in the other positions. In fact two different styles were used in the units position, one style if the unit were a 1 and a second style if the unit were greater than one. Both these styles differed from the standard knot used for all other positions. The system had a zero position, for this would be represented as no knots in that position. This meant that the spacing had to be highly regular so that zero positions would be clear. There are many drawings and descriptions of quipus made by the Spanish invaders. Garcilaso de la Vega, whose mother was an Inca and whose father was Spanish, wrote (see for example [5]):-
Now of course recording a number on a string would, in itself, not be that useful. A quipu had many strings and there had to be some way that the string carrying the record of a particular number could be identified. The primary way this was done was by the use of colour. Numbers were recorded on strings of a particular colour to identify what that number was recording. For example numbers of cattle might be recorded on green strings while numbers of sheep might be recorded on white strings. The colours each had several meanings, some of which were abstract ideas, some concrete as in the cattle and sheep example. White strings had the abstract meaning of "peace" while red strings had the abstract meaning of "war" As well as the colour coding, another way of distinguishing the strings was to make some strings subsidiary ones, tied to the middle of a main string rather than being tied to the main horizontal cord. (Illustration omitted) Quipu with subsidiary cords. We quote Garcilaso de la Vega again [5]:-
It was not only judges who sent quipus to be kept in a central record. The Inca king appointed quipucamayocs, or keepers of the knots, to each town. Larger towns might have had up to thirty quipucamayocs who were essentially government statisticians, keeping official census records of the population, records of the produce of the town, its animals and weapons. This and other information was sent annually to the capital Cuzco. There was even an official delivery service to take to quipus to Cuzco which consisted of relay runners who passed the quipus on to the next runner at specially constructed staging posts. The terrain was extremely difficult yet the Incas had constructed roads to make the passing of information by quipus surprisingly rapid. Much information on the quipus comes from a letter of the Peruvian Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala to the King of Spain, written about eighty years after the Spanish conquest of the Incas. This remarkable letter contains 1179 pages and there are several drawings which show quipus. A fascinating aspect of one of these drawing is a picture of a counting board in the bottom left hand corner of one of them. This is called the yupana and is presumed to be the counting board of the Incas. (Illustration omitted) This is what the yupana looked like. Interpretations of how this counting board, or Peruvian abacus, might have been used have been given by several authors, see for example [9] and [11]. However some historians are less certain that this really is a Peruvian abacus. For example [2] in which the authors write:-
It is a difficult task to gain further insights into the mathematical understanding of the Incas. The book [6] by Urton is interesting for it examines the concept of number as understood by the Inca people. As one might expect, their concept of number was a very concrete one, unlike our concept of number which is a highly abstract one (although this is not really understood by many people). The concrete way of conceiving numbers is illustrated by different words used when describing properties of numbers. One example given in [6] is that of even and odd numbers. Now the ideas of an even number, say, relies on having an abstract concept of number which is independent of the objects being counted. However, the Peruvian languages had different words which applied to different types of objects. For example separate words occur for the idea of [6]:-
This is a fascinating topic and one which deserves much further research. One wonders whether the Incas applied their number system to solve mathematical problems. Was it merely for recording? If the yupana really was an abacus then it must have been used to solve problems and this prompts the intriguing question of what these problems were. A tantalising glimpse may be contained in the writings of the Spanish priest José de Acosta who lived among the Incas from 1571 to 1586. He writes in his book Historia Natural Moral de las Indias which was published in Madrid in 1596:-
What a pity that de Acosta did not have the mathematical skills to give a precise description which would have allowed us to understand this method of calculation by the Incas. Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson January 2001 MacTutor History of Mathematics [http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Inca_mathematics.html]
THE EGYPTIAN HEAVEN AND HELL E. E. Wallis Budge 1857-1934 Page 59 "CHAPTER OF COMING FORTH BY DAY AND OF MAKING A WAY THROUGH THE AMMEHET." "SETI MER EN PTAH"
GODS JUDGEMENT GODS DIVINE LAW ISISISISISIS LAW DIVINE
I INCA THE SON OF THE SUN
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