The Nine Lords of Xibalba

Part II Chapter 1 of the Popol Vuh

All of them held a council. Those called Hun-Camé and Vucub-Camé were the supreme judges. All the lords had been assigned their duties. Each one was given his own authority by Hun-Camé and Vucub-Camé.

They were, then, Xiquiripat and Cuchumaquic lords of these names. They were the two who caused the shedding of blood of the men.

Others were called Ahalpuh and Ahalganá, also lords. And their work was to make men swell and make pus gush forth from their legs and stain their faces yellow, what is called Chuganal. Such was the work of Ahalpuh and Ahalganá.

Others were Lord Chamiabac and Lord Chamiaholom, constables of Xibalba whose staffs were of bone. Their work was to make men waste away until they were nothing but skin and bone and they died, and they carried them With their stomach and bones stretched out. This was the work of Chamiabac and Chamiaholom, as they were called.

Others were called Lord Ahalmez and Lord Ahaltocob; their work was to bring disaster upon men, as they were going home, or in front of it, and they would be found wounded, stretched out, face up, on the ground, dead. This was the work of Ahalmez and Ahaltocob, as they were called.

Immediately after them were other lords named Xic and Patán whose work it was to cause men to die on the road, which is called sudden death, making blood to rush to their mouths until they died vomiting blood. The work of each one of these lords was to seize upon them, squeeze their throats and chests, so that the men died on the road, making the blood rush to their throats when they were walking. This was the work of Xic and Patán.

Zoroastrian Cosmology

Calendar Reform - Symbolism and Mythology

from Oriental Mythology by Joseph Campbell

“The earliest prophet of this mythology of cosmic restoration was, apparently, the Persian Zoroaster, whose dates, however, have not been securely established. They have been variously placed between 1200 and 550 BC, so that, like Homer, he should perhaps be regarded rather as symbolic of a tradition than as specifically, or solely, one man. The system associated with his name is based on the idea of a conflict between the wise lord, Ahura Mazda, “first father of the Righteous Order, who gave to the sun and stars their path,” and an independent evil principle, Angra Mainyu, the Deceiver, principle of the lie, who, when all had been excellently made, entered into it in every particle. The world, consequently, is a compound wherein good and evil, light and dark, wisdom and violence, are contending for a victory. And the privilege and duty of each man - who, himself, as a part of creation, is a compound of good and evil - is to elect, voluntarily, to engage in the battle in the interest of the light. It is supposed that with the birth of Zoroaster, twelve thousand years following the creation of the world, a decisive turn was given the conflict in favor of the good, and that when he returns, after another twelve millenia, in the person of the messiah Saoshyant, there will take place a final battle and cosmic conflagration, through which the lie will be undone. Whereafter, all will be light, there will be no further history, and the Kingdom of God (Ahura Mazda) will have been established in its pristine form forever.”

“The ultimate background of both the oriental and the occidental storied heavens and pits of hell, with the world mountain between, is the Mesopotamian concept of the architecture of the universe, where, as we have found, there is an axial cosmic mountain symbolized by the ziggurat oriented with its sides to the quarters, above which, in the highest heaven, sits a supreme god, An, amidst a brilliant company of deities. The Plant of Birth and the Bread and Water of Immortality are in that lofty sphere, below which, in the middle sky, is the divine archetype and lord of royal rule, whose role, in the long course of Mesopotamian history with its fluctuation of empire, was played by a number of incumbents: first, apparently, Enlil (the patron deity of Sumerian Nippur), then Bel Marduk (of Hammurabi’s Babylon), Assur (of Assyria), and, among numerous others, Yahweh (of the early Hebrews). In his court of many shining gods (or angels) the Tablets of Fate were annually indited. And the seen heavens of the planets revolved below, in stages, which in the period of Assyria (c. 1100 - 630 bc) were represented by seven terraced stories on the mountainside of the ziggurat, while beneath the earth, in the abyss, the terrible goddess Ereshkigal, of the Land of No Return, was approached through seven gates. In her domain of darkness, called Arallu, a horde of monsters and of unfortunate souls deprived at death of the last rites of burial wandered horribly in the forms of unsightly birds.”

Popol Vuh

Quiche Maya Creation Tale

Popol Vuh - Part I: Chapter 1

THIS IS THE ACCOUNT OF HOW ALL WAS in suspense, all calm, in silence; all motionless, still, and the expanse of the sky was empty.

This is the first account, the first narrative. There was neither man, nor animal, birds, fishes, crabs, trees, stones, caves, ravines, grasses, nor forests; there was only the sky.

The surface of the earth had not appeared. There was only the calm sea and the great expanse of the sky.

There was nothing brought together, nothing which could make a noise, nor anything which might move, or tremble, or could make noise in the sky.

There was nothing standing; only the calm water, the placid sea, alone and tranquil. Nothing existed.

There was only immobility and silence in the darkness,

in the night. Only the creator, the Maker, Tepeu, Gucumatz, the Forefathers, were in the water surrounded with light.  They were hidden under green and blue feathers, and were therefore called Gucumatz.  By nature they were great sages and great thinkers.  In this manner the sky existed and also the Heart of Heaven, which is the name of God and thus He is called.

Then came the word. Tepeu and Gucumatz came together in the darkness, in the night, and Tepeu and Gucumatz talked together.  They talked then, discussing and deliberating; they agreed, they united their words and their thoughts.

Then while they meditated, it became clear to them that when dawn would break, man must appear. Then they planned the creation, and the growth of the trees and the thickets and the birth of life and the creation of man. Thus it was arranged in the darkness and in the night by the Heart of Heaven who is called Huracán.

The first is called Caculhá Huracán. The second is Chipi-Caculhá. The third is Raxa-Caculhá. And these three are the Heart of Heaven.

Then Tepeu and Gucumatz came together; then they conferred about life and light, what they would do so that there would be light and dawn, who it would be who would provide food and sustenance.

Thus let it be done! Let the emptiness be filled! Let the water recede and make a void, let the earth appear and become solid; let it be done. Thus they spoke. Let there be light, let there be dawn in the sky and on the earth! There shall be neither glory nor grandeur in our creation and formation until the human being is made, man is formed. So they spoke.

Then the earth was created by them. So it was, in truth, that they created the earth. Earth! they said, and instantly it was made.

Like the mist, like a cloud, and like a cloud of dust was the creation, when the mountains appeared from the water; and instantly the mountains grew.

Only by a miracle, only by magic art were the mountains and valleys formed; and instantly the groves of cypresses and pines put forth shoots together on the surface of the earth.

And thus Gucumatz was filled with joy, and exclaimed: “Your coming has been fruitful, Heart of Heaven; and you, Huracán, and you, Chipi-Caculhá, Raxa-Caculhá!”

“Our work, our creation shall be finished,” they answered.

First the earth was formed, the mountains and the valleys; the currents of water were divided, the rivulets were running freely between the hills, and the water was separated when the high mountains appeared.

Thus was the earth created, when it was formed by the Heart of Heaven, the Heart of Earth, as they are called who first made it fruitful, when the sky was in suspense, and the earth was submerged in the water.

So it was that they made perfect the work, when they did it after thinking and meditating upon it.

Part I: Chapter 4

IT WAS CLOUDY AND TWILIGHT THEN ON the face of the earth. There was no sun yet. Nevertheless, there was a being called Vucub-Caquix [Seven Macaw], who was very proud of himself.

The sky and the earth existed, but the faces of the sun and the moon were covered.

And he [Vucub-Caquix] said: “Truly, they are clear examples of those people who were drowned, and their nature is that of supernatural beings.

“I shall now be great above all the beings created and formed. I am the sun, the light, the moon,” he exclaimed. “Great is my splendor. Because of me men shall walk and conquer. For my eyes are of silver, bright, resplendent as precious stones, as emeralds; my teeth shine like perfect stones, like the face of the sky. My nose shines afar like the moon, my throne is of silver, and the face of the earth is lighted when I pass before my throne.

“So, then, I am the sun, I am the moon, for all mankind. So shall it be, because I can see very far.”

So Vucub-Caquix spoke. But he was not really the sun; he was only vainglorious of his feathers and his riches. And he could see only as far as the horizon, and he could not see over all the world.

The face of the sun had not yet appeared, nor that of the moon, nor the stars, and it had not dawned. Therefore, Vucub-Caquix became as vain as though he were the sun and the moon, because the light of the sun and the moon had not yet shown itself His only ambition was to exalt himself and to dominate. And all this happened when the flood came because of the wooden-people.

Now we shall tell how Vucub-Caquix was overthrown and died, and how man was made by the Creator and the Maker.

Jain Cosmic Being

Calendar Reform, Symbolism and Mythology

from Oriental Mythology by Joseph Campbell

Humanity’s World, trapped within the torturous karmic wheel of rebirth, encircle’s the Cosmic Being’s waist.

p 228
“Below, in the seven hells, are figures terrible to behold, like immense birds deprived of feathers, sexless, and having bodies of a type known as “changeable” (vaikriyika); for they are without bones or tendons and very loosely put together. In the lowest hell they are 1000 yards tall; in the next, 500; the fifth, 250; in the fourth, 125; next 62 1/2; the second, 31 1/4; and in the first or uppermost hell, 46 feet, 10 1/2 inches. Those of the lowest three hells are black, the next two, dark blue, and the upper two, the gray of smoke. All being subject to the four cardinal passions of pride, wrath, delusion, and desire, they torment and mangle one another horribly with arrows, javelins and tridents, clubs and axes, knives and razors, tossing one another to beasts and birds endowed with claws and beaks of iron or into rivers of corrosive liquid or of fire; some are hung head downward into boiling vats of blood and filth, others are being roasted alive; more, pinned through the head to great moaning trees, are having their bodies sliced to ribbons. And the food of this company is poison, sizzling grease and ordure, while for drink they have molten metal. The upper three hells are blazing, the next two, mixed of hot and cold, and the deepest, freezing - as in Dante’s view.

“Furthermore, to the upper hells, fifteen deities of a coarse and lusty ilk known as asuras are assigned, who are not miserable at all in this domain, but, on the contrary, take fiendish delight in administering pain.

“But deities, in the Jain view, whether fiends in hell or celestial beings, are themselves merely monads caught in the vortex of rebirth, happy for a time, but destined to pass to other forms. And they are of four chief but finely subdivided categories:

I. Gods supporting the earthly order
1. fiends of the upper hells (asuras)
2. divine serpents
3. lightning deities
4. golden-feathered sun-birds
5. fire deities
6. wind deities
7. thunder gods
8. water gods
9. gods of the continents
10. gods of the quarters

II. Wilderness or Jungle Sprits
1. Kinnaras - “what sort of man?” - birdlike musicians having human heads
2. Kimpurushas - “what sort of man?” - human forms with horse heads
3. Mahoragas - great serpents
4. Gandharvas - celestial manlike musicians
5. Yakshas - powerful earth demons, usually benign
6. Rakshasas - malignant & very dangerous cannibal demons
7. Bhutas - cemetery vampires
8. Pishachas - malignant, mighty imps

III. Heavenly bodies
1. Suns - numbering, in the worlds inhabited by man, 132
2. Moons - likewise 132
3. Constellations - for each sun and for each moon 28
4. Planets - for each sun and for each moon 88
5. Stars - for each sun and for each moon 6, 697, 500, 000, 000

IV. Dwellers in the Mansions of the Storied Heavens, of two orders
1. Those within the Temporal Sphere
A. Masters of the True Law
B. The Lordly Powers
C. The Ever-Youthful
D. The Great Kings
E. Dwellers in the Causal World
F. Lords of the Mystical Sound Va
G. The Greatly Brilliant
H. Those of a Thousand Rays
I. The Pacific
J. The Revered
K. Those Delighting in the Abyss
L. The Imperishable (acyutas “not dripping”)
2. Those beyond the Temporal Sphere, of two classes
A. Those residing in the Cosmic Neck
i. Delightful to See
ii. Of Noble Achievement
iii. Delighting the Mind
iv. Universally Benign
v. Illustrious
vi. Well Disposed
vii. Auspicious
viii. Giving Joy
ix. Giving Bliss
B. Those residing in the Cosmic Head
i. The Victorious
ii. The Carriers of Banners
iii. The Conquerors
iv. The Invincibles
v. The Fully Realized

“Each of these forty-nine sub-orders of divine being is organized, like an Indian kingdom, in ten grades:

1. kings (indras)
2. princes
3. thirty-three high functionaries
4. Court Nobles
5. Bodyguards
6. Palace Guards
7. Soldiers
8. Citizens
9. Slaves
10. Criminal Classes

“All deities dwelling below the sphere of the neck delight in sexual play, and, as in the hells, so here, the life monads are of colors according to kind: those of ctegories I, II, and III are black, dark blue, and the gray of smoke; those of IV, sub-orders 1. A and B, flame red; C to E, yellow; and the rest, increasingly white. Gods of orders I, II, and III, furthermore, and of IV. 1. A and B are ten feet six inches tall. Contrast the beings in the lowest hell, with a stature of one thousand yards!

“And so, above the earth, as well as beneath, there is imagined only a manifold of monads - no God, nor even god, either in the usual Occidental sense of these terms or in the early Vedic sense.”