self, in the form of a tortoise, served as a pivot for the mountain as it was whirled around.[1]
The notion of the earth being itself a great tortoise swimming in the midst of the ocean, is thus described by Reinaud:—"According to Varâha-Mihira, the Indians represented to themselves the inhabited part of the world under the form of a tortoise floating upon the water; it is in this sense that they call the World Kaurma-chakra, that is to say, 'the wheel of the tortoise.'"[2] And lastly, the ancient Vedic Books of India, which so often supply the means of tracing the most florid developments of mythology back to mere simple child-like views of nature, present, as really existing in very early times, the original idea out of which the whole series of myths of the World-Tortoise seems to have grown. To man in the lower levels of science, the earth is a flat plain over which the sky is placed like a dome, as the arched upper shell of the tortoise stands upon the flat plate below, and this is why the tortoise is the symbol and representative of the world. The analogy of other conceptions of heaven and earth, as formed by the two halves of the shell of Brahma's Egg, or by the two calabashes shut together in the mythology of the Yorubas of Africa,[3] is indeed sufficient to lead us to the opinion that this was the original meaning of the World-Tortoise, but the following passage from Weber will enable us to substitute fact for inference. "The earth is conceived in the Catapatha Brâhmana as the under shell (adharam kapâlam) of the Tortoise Kûrma, which represents the Triple World. The upper shell is the sky, the body lying between the two shells is the atmosphere (nabhas, antari-ksham) which connects them."[4]
- ↑ Boehtlingk & Roth, s. v. Kûrma. Wilson, s. v. Kûrmarâja. Coleman, p. 12. Vans Kennedy, 'Researches;' London, 1831, pp. 216, 243. Holwell, 'Historical Events,' etc.; London, 1766 7, part ii. p. 109. Falconer, in Proc. Zool. Soc., 1844, p. 86. See Sir W. Jones, in As. Res. vol. ii. p. 119. Baldæus, in Churchill's Voyages, vol. iii. p. 848. Wilson, 'Vishnu Purana;' London, 1840, p. 75. W. v. Humboldt (Kawi-Spr., vol. i. p. 240) says with reference to the Naga Padoha, the great snake on whose three horns the world rests,—"It seems to me not unlikely, that the idea of a world-bearing elephant lies at the bottom of the whole saga [of the snake, that is] and that the double meaning of Sanskrit nâga, elephant and snake, has brought confusion into the story."
- ↑ Reinaud, 'Mémoire sur l'Inde;' Paris, 1849, p. 116.
- ↑ Pott, 'Anti-Kaulen;' Lemgo, 1863, p. 68.
- ↑ Weber, 'Indische Studien;' Berlin, 1850, etc.; vol. i. p. 187. See also p. 81.
