mythical location; it is the fire-pit at the place of sacrifice where Agni blazes
and forms a link with heaven. In Greece too the Navel of Earth, ΓH
%μφαλο ́ , was a feature of a religious site –– Delphi. This seems more than a
coincidence. But it is not necessarily the result of inheritance from Graeco-
Aryan times. The term ‘navel of the earth’ occurs also in Hebrew, and in
Asiatic shamanism, which may be where it was originally at home.^15
As for Earth’s bones, hair, and back, if they are Indo-European images, it
must be granted that they do not form elements of a coherent system, as the
hair grows on the back and the bones are scattered about on it.
World pillar, world treeThere are a number of Vedic references to a prop or support (skambhá-,
skámbhanam) of the sky. Some of them are clearly figurative. The world is
pictured as being created anew each day by the dawn sacrifice, when Agni or
Soma or Indra and Soma bring up the dawn and sun, prop up the sky, and
spread out the earth (RV 6. 72. 2, cf. 9. 74. 2, 86. 46; 10. 111. 5); the Sun is the
prop of heaven that supports the firmament (4. 13. 5). Varuna is said to hold
heaven and earth apart with a pillar (8. 41. 10, cf. 6. 70. 1). When we read that
Vishnu propped up the sky after taking his three famous cosmic steps (1. 154.
1), or that Indra after killing the dragon propped heaven and earth further
apart (5. 29. 4, cf. 6. 44. 24, 47. 5; ‘like a pair of wheels with the axle’, 10. 89. 4),
it is doubtful whether we are to think of a physical prop that still exists as a
structural part of the universe. But it is a plausible assumption that behind
this abstract imagery lies a more primitive concept of a world pillar that held
up the sky like the timber prop of a house or yurt.^16
In Greek myth the sky is supported on Atlas’ head and shoulders (Hes.
Th. 517–20, 746–8), but there is a concurrent notion of a pillar or pillars
(ibid. 779, Ibycus, PMGF 336), in some passages awkwardly combined with
Atlas (Od. 1. 52–4, [Aesch.] Prom. 348–50).
In connection with the hypothetical god *Aryomen in Chapter 3 I men-
tioned the Saxon cult pillar known as Irminsûl, noting that the element
irmin- in compounds seems to have a cosmic or universal connotation.
Irmansûl, plural -sûlî, also occurs in Old High German glosses, rendered as
colossus, altissima columna, pyramides. The Saxons’ pillar was of wood, and
impressively tall. The ninth-century monk Rudolf of Fulda says of it:
(^15) Cf. Durante (1976), 112; West (1997), 149 f. The Homeric ‘navel of the sea’ (Od. 1. 50, of
Calypso’s isle) has a parallel at MBh. 3. 21. 16, where, however, the phrase refers not to an island
but to a coastal bay.
(^16) See further Macdonell (1898), 11, 14, 120.
- Cosmos and Canon 345