- stroyed, as it were—a train of thought which Schopenhauer
also had in mind, and which appears as a product of a diseased mind in Schreber.[26] The horse in the above text stands between two sacrificial vessels, from one of which it comes and to the other of which it goes, just as the sun passes from morning to evening. The horse, therefore, signifies the libido, which has passed into the world. We previously saw that the "mother libido" must be sacrificed in order to produce the world; here the world is destroyed by the repeated sacrifice of the same libido, which once belonged to the mother. The horse can, therefore, be substituted as a symbol for this libido, because, as we saw, it had manifold connections with the mother.[27] The sacrifice of the horse can only produce another state of introversion, which is similar to that before the creation of the world. The position of the horse between the two vessels, which represent the producing and the devouring mother, hint at the idea of life enclosed in the ovum; therefore, the vessels are destined to "surround" the horse. That this is actually so the Brihadâranyaka-Upanishad 3: 3 proves:
"1. From where have the descendants of Parikshit come, that
I ask thee, Yâjñavalkya! From where came the descendants of
Parikshit?
"2. Yâjñavalkya spake: 'He has told thee, they have come from where all come, who offer up the sacrificial horse. That is to say, this world extends so far as two and thirty days of the chariot of the Gods (the sun) reach. This (world) surrounds the earth twice around. This earth surrounds the ocean twice around. There is, as broad as the edge of a razor or as the wing of a fly, a space between (the two shells of the egg of the world).
