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The Cosmology of the Incas in Tawaintisuyu
The traditional view of Inca religion has been built chiefly on the
writings of *Garcilaso de la Vega, Bartolomé de las Casas, and Pedro
Cieza de Leon*. In the *Commentarios Reales* of the hispanicized Inca
nobleman Garcilaso de la Vega, the cult of the Sun is portrayed as
supreme. The chief temple in Cuzco, the Coricancha, is said to have been
dedicated to the Sun (II.9) with similar Sun-temples scattered
throughout the provinces; the Inca rulers allegedly prided themselves on
being descended from the Sun. The sacrifices to the Sun are described at
length (II.8). While Garcilaso makes mention of a god named Pachacamac,
and includes a passing reference to Viracocha, we learn almost nothing
of the real nature of these divinities. Bartolome de las Casas, the
great defender of the Indians, comes closer to the truth when he
portrays the solar cult as an outgrowth of the cult of Viracocha, the
Sun being worshipped as the most glorious of the manifestations of
Viracocha?s creation, and a constant reminder of his supreme power. The
establishment of the solar cult is ascribed to the Inca Pachacuti, its
principal seat being ?/aquel grandisimo y riquisimo templo de la ciudad
de Cuzco,? /the Coricancha. The testimony of Cieza de Leon is
substantially the same. The Coricancha is, according to him, ?as old as
the city of Cuzco,? and is dedicated to the worship of the Sun.
Cristobal de Molina, a Spanish friar, wrote his Chronicle about the year
1573. He traces the cult of the Sun back to the reign of the first Inca,
Manco Capac, and relates the first appearance of the Sun, together with
that of the Moon, to the time immediately following the Deluge, these
luminaries having been placed in the sky by the Creator. Manco Capac,
who lived in the first post-diluvian era, made a covenant with the Sun
that he and his descendants would adopt this luminary as their divine
parent. Whether the Sun was the chief object of worship at this time is,
however, open to question, since one of Manco Capac?s descendants, Inca
Yupanqui, is said to have built up the temple of Viracocha in Cuzco,
which before him had been small and poor, having been inspired to this
task by a vision. He is also credited with introducing the cult of the
Sun alongside that of the Creator; later a third cult, that of the
Thunderbolt, was said to have been added by him.
The account of *Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa* (fl. 1532-1572) adds several
significant details: ?The natives of this country say that in the
beginning, before the world was created, there was one whom they called
Viracocha. And he created the world dark and without the Sun, nor Moon,
nor stars.? The Sun, according to Sarmiento?s narrative, emerged only
after the Deluge. Sarmiento has much to say about Viracocha and his
deeds, and also tells of the Sun?s worship in Cuzco and other places.
But while Sarmiento conveys invalubale information about the early ages
as remembered among the Quechuas of the Altiplano, his account of the
cult of the empire is scanty and of little value, being colored by his
arrogant and hostile attitude towards a culture that, only a few years
earlier had been trampled underfoot by his compatriots. He relates some
of the traditions collected by him under the heading: ?The Fable of the
Origin of these Barbaric Indians according to their Blind Opinions.?
With this information in hand, there was little reason to doubt the
reality of an all-important solar cult in Tawaintisuyu. But a little
over a century ago a series of momentous literary discoveries changed
this situation very materially. In 1873 Clemens R. Markham, in the
course of a survey of some of the collections of Madrid?s Biblioteca
Nacional, lighted upon a previously unknown sixteenth- century
manuscript entitled /Relacion de antiguedades deste reyno de Piru../ Its
author, an Aymara Indian named Pachacuti Sallkamaywa, was from a noble
family, newly converted to Catholicism. The same library yielded also
the Fabulos y ritos de los Incas by Cristobal Molina, that had been
consigned to obscurity since its composition three centuries earlier
(Markham published a translation of both in the same year 1873) and soon
thereafter an anonymous seventeenth-century treatise /De las costumbres
antiguas de los naturales del Piru,/. came to light, appearing in print
in 1879. The publication of these manuscripts with their precious new
information on Inca religion and culture should have engendered a
wholesale reassessment of the traditional views on these questions.
While a reassessment of sorts did take place, it did not result in any
significant changes in the accepted views on the political and religious
life of Tawaintisuyu. A thorough re-evaluation is overdue. In
particular, the notion that a solar cult was supreme in Tawaintisuyu is
no longer tenable.
Until the publication of *Juan Pachacuti*?s manuscript a century ago we
lacked the evidence that could decisively counter the unanimous opinion
of the various chroniclers that the Temple of Viracocha was dedicated to
the Sun. However, Pachacuti included in his manuscript a rough drawing
of the altar of that temple. The altar itself had destroyed soon after
the conquest. This representation is crucial for an understanding of the
cult of the Coricancha and, thus in Tawaintisuyu as a whole.
We may observe that the dominant deity depicted on the altar is not the
Sun, but a large oblong disk, which, the author tells us, was made of
gold. This disk, by far the largest object on the altar, is flanked on
either side by the Sun and Moon and by Venus, depicted in its two
aspects as the Morning and Evening Star. Had the Sun been the chief
object of worship in Tawaintisuyu, as the chroniclers have been assuring
us thus far, we would expect its image to have the predominant place in
the kingdom?s chief temple, ostensibly dedicated to its worship.
Instead, we find it relegated to a definitely subordinate position. As
to the disk itself, Pachacuti describes it thus: ?/Dicen que fue imagen
del Hacedor del verdadero sol, del sol llamado Viracochan
pachayachachiy??/?They say that it was the image of the Creator of the
true sun, of the sun called Viracochan pachayachachiy.? Viracochan
pachayachachiy is usually translated as ?Viracocha, Ruler of the Entire
Earth.? This statement betrays some confusion: Viracocha is called the
?true sun? obviously to distinguish him from our familiar luminary. The
latter is also depicted, and labeled Inti, i.e., Sun. According to the
quoted sentence, not Viracocha but his nameless Creator was depicted on
the altar. But, as we have seen, Sarmiento was told that Viracocha
himself was the Creator, and this appears to be the common Inca view.
The golden image in the center of the altar should be identified as
Viracocha. It was, after all, the most holy object in Viracocha?s
Temple. Pachacuti tells of the origin of the image: It was first
fashioned by Manco Capac of pure gold and was meant to signify the
Creator of Heaven and Earth. Manco Capac placed it in a large house
called Corichancha, which means ?the golden enclosure.? For some
unexplained reason, in the time of the Inca Mayta Capac, the golden
plate needed to be restored; at the same time, new ceremonies and
festivals were established for the worship of Viracocha. All other
objects of worship were downgraded: ?/menospreciando a todas las cosas,
elementos y creaturas, como a los hombres y sol y luna.? /Pachacuti does
not tell us explicitely what was the ?Sun called Viracochan
pachayachachi? only that it was not our Sun, which he designates as
Inti. The solution to this puzzle will obviously provide us with a most
important clue to the real cult of Tawaintisuyu.
A positive answer to this question would have been impossible if not for
the discovery of a work by an anonymous Jesuit of the early seventeenth
century, entitled /De las costumbres antiguas de los naturales del
Piru./ This still largely neglected text, which saw publication in 1879
soon after its discovery in the Bibliotheca Nacional in Madrid, is by
far the best informed of the post-conquest accounts as far as the nature
of the Inca cult is concerned. Alone among the chroniclers our author
quotes extensively from the quipus consulted by himQthat is, Indians
charged with keeping the quipu records, in whose minds these knotted
ropes still brought forth recollections of past events. This is
something that most other contemporary writers failed to do. His sources
are manifold. Besides the quipus, he refers also to Spanish authors,
among them to several whose writings are now lost. On the basis of his
sources he feels confident in refuting many of the assertions that
writers such as Polo de Ondegardo had made about Inca religion and
customs. Brief as the Jesuit?s chronicle is, it overturns the standard
notions of an Inca solar cult. Since to my knowledge it has not been
reissued since it first appeared in print over a hundred years ago, and
has never been translated into English, I shall quote from it at some
length (my translation):
They believed and said that the world, heaven and earth, sun and moon,
had been created by one greater than they: they called him Illa Tecce,
which means ?Eternal Light.? The moderns added another name, that is,
Viracocha, which means ?Great God of Pirua,? meaning whom Pirua, the
first settler of these lands, worshipped, and from whom the entire
country and empire took the name Pirua, which the Spaniards$have
corrupted to Peru or Piru. The Devil deceived them to the effect that
this great and true God had passed on his divinity and power to various
creatures, in order that each should operate according to the task and
virtue assigned to it; and that these gods accompanied and advised the
great God, and chiefly were in the heavens, as are the Sun, Moon, stars
and planets.
For this reason the inhabitants of Peru were for a long period of years
without idols, without statues, without images, for they worshiped
solely the heavenly luminaries and the stars.
Of the Sun they said that it was the son of the great Illa Tecce and
that the physical light which it gave off was part of the divine
nature which Illa Tecce had imparted to it, that it might direct and
govern the days, the times, the years and the seasons, and also
kings and kingdoms and lords and other things. Of the Moon they said
that she was a sister and wife of the Sun, and that Illa Tecce had
given to her a portion of his divinity, and made her mistress of the
sea and of winds, of queens and princesses, of women?s labor, and
queen of heaven. The Moon they called Coya, which means ?queen.?
Of Dawn [i.e., the Morning Star] they said that she was a goddess of
young maidens and princesses, and originator of the flowers of the
fields, and mistress of the dawn and twilight; and that it was she
who threw dew onto the earth when she shook her hair, and they thus
called her Chasca [i.e., hairy].
Jupiter they called Pirua, saying, first of all, that it was this
planet that the great Illa Tecce had commanded should be the
guardian and lord of the empire and provinces of Piru, and of its
government and of its lands; and for this they sacrificed to this
planet all the firstfruits of their harvests and all that which
seemed most noteworthy and finest by its nature, such as an ear or
grain of maize, or other harvests and fruits and trees. To this god
they dedicated their granaries, their treasures, their storehouses,
or the best ears of maize, or those first harvested, and they called
the stores which they had in their houses, in which they kept their
wealth and clothes, their tableware and arms, ?Pirua.? Secondly,
they said that this great Pirua Pacaric Manco Inca, the first
settler of these lands, when he died, was raised up to heaven to the
house and station of this god called Pirua, and that there he was
lodged and entertained by this god.
Mars-Aucayoc-they said they had charged with matters relating to
wars and soldiers; Mercury-Catu Illa-with those having to do with
merchants and travellers and messengers. Saturn-Haucha-they charged
with pestilence and slaughter and famine, and lightning and thunder;
and they said that he held a club and bows and arrows to hurt and
punish men for their evils.
What is really astounding about this passage is the close similarity of
the characteristics ascribed in it to the major planets to those common
among the Greeks and the Romans. Among the Incas, just as among the
Greeks and the Romans, Zeus, or Jupiter, was known as supreme among the
gods. Ares, or Mars, was the god of war, Hermes, or Mercury, of
travellers and merchants. The word ?merchant? in fact comes from the
Latin mercari= ?to trade? (Webster?s, 2nd ed.), which is one of the
functions of the Roman Mercurius. Saturn?s malevolent nature was also
recognized among the Greeks and Romans. How can these similarities be
explained? At least three possibilities suggest themselves:
1.
The anonymous author was influenced by his knowledge of Greek and
Roman mythology with which, as an educated Jesuit, he would be
well acquainted. He projected this knowledge onto the Inca beliefs
he claimed to be reporting. But this would mean that the Jesuit
deliberately falsified his method of collecting information. But,
as noted above, he is exceptionally meticulous in citing his
informants by name and location.
2.
The author?s Inca informants had been influenced by Greek and
Roman mythology, which they received from Europeans in the early
years following the conquest of Peru. They assimilated this
information into their own mythology, and later transmitted it as
their own. This assumes that the Spaniards would have informed the
natives of Peru about some of the finer points of Greek and Roman
mythology, rather about the Trinity and Christianity in general,
which seems to have left no mark on the tales of the quipus.
3.
The Incas had been influenced by pre-Conquest contacts with
Phoenicians, or other peoples from the Mediterranean region. The
ancients had the technical means to cross them Atlantic Ocean, and
there are some indications that they did actually cross it.
Charles Hapgood has presented evidence that contacts among the
ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean, the Americas, and the
Far East, were once commonplace.
Whatever the explanation for the similarities with the mythology of the
Old World, the anonymous Jesuit provides important information about the
nature of the Inca cult. Besides the Coricancha he mentions a Temple of
Viracocha, a Temple of the Planet Jupiter, and one which we may call a
?Dragon Temple.? ?The Temple of the Sun,? the writer tells us, was later
converted into the Church of Santo Domingo--but according to Martin de
Morua and other writers, the Church of Santo Domingo is the former
Coricancha. Thus the ?Temple of the Sun? and the Coricancha are one and
the same temple. But we have already examined the altar of the
Coricancha and found no evidence that the Sun?s cult was pre-eminent
there. Its chief object of worship is identified as Viracochan
Pachayachachi. The cult of the Coricancha was, it seems, some heavenly
body which was called ?sun? before the Inti, the sun of our days was
created. Was it Jupiter who, according to the chronicler, was given
sovereignty over the whole land? But Jupiter had a temple separate from
the Coricancha. Was it Saturn? Saturn, or Haucha, is not otherwise
depicted on the altar and no separate temple to this planet is known to
exist. Saturn seems a more likely choice than Jupiter; however, the
sources on Tawaintisuyu presently at our disposal give no direct
indication of the true nature of the chief cult of the empire with its
sanctuary, the Coricancha; the surmise that it was Saturn must be based
on extraneous sources, mainly from Babylonia and China. We have gone as
far as we could on the basis of the native evidence; now we need to see
if the cosmologies of other ancient peoples may shed any light on the
question.
That a celestial body should be called ?the sun? and yet be something
other than the sun may at first appear strange. But a close parallel is
available in Babylonia. In Babylonian astronomy Alap-Shamash, ?the star
of the sun? was Saturn. Ninib, another Babylonian designation for
Saturn, ?is said to shine like the sun.? In India the appelative of the
sun, /arki/, was also applied to Saturn.
In Sanscrit /arka/ means ?belonging or relating to the sun.? But Arki is
a name for Saturn, the most distant of the planets visible with the
naked eye. Arc means ?to shine, be brilliant,? Arkin means ?radiant with
light.? Arkaja, the name often applied to Saturn, designates it as an
offspring of the Sun (Markandeya Purana). Diodorus of Sicily (II. 30.
3-4) reported that the Chaldeans called Kronos (Saturn) by the name
Helios, or the Sun. Hyginus also wrote that Saturn was called ?sun.?
(/De Astronomia/ II. 42. 8-10.) These examples demonstrate that there is
no incongruity in interpreting the reports of the Inca devotion for the
sun and of the cult of the sun in the Coricancha as referring actually
to Saturn.
The evidence from China throws even more light on the cosmology of
Tawaintisuyu; but in order to be able to use this evidence properly, we
must first say something about the political organization of the Inca
kingdom.
Tawaintisuyu means ?the four quarters? of which the Inca empire
consisted-Chinchasuyu to the North, Qollasuyu to the South, Antisuyu to
the East and Kuntisuyu to the West. At the center of Tawaintisuyu was
Cuzco, the capital, with the Inca ruler and the Coricancha. From Cuzco
four roads led toward each of the suyus or quarters. These roads,
described in detail by Polo de Ondegardo, had a significance that went
far beyond their value as means of communication. Here is Polo?s
description: ?From the temple of the Sun went, as from the center,
certain lines, which the Indians called ceques; and they were divided
into four parts according to the four royal roads that went out of
Cuzco. . .? And Polo goes on to describe in great detail the shrines
that were situated along the ceques and the roads. The organization of
the Inca kingdom resembles closely the political organization of the
Chinese Empire. According to the Han historian Ssuma Ts'ien, the planet
Saturn ?corresponds to the center.? The four other planets represented
the four cardinal points; Saturn was placed at the pole, and the entire
stellar sphere was said to revolve around it. The earthly kindom was set
up to reflect the heavenly sphere. Just as Saturn occupied the central
position in the sky, so the imperial palace and the emperor occupied the
central location in the Chinese empire. At the center of the Inca empire
stood the Coricancha, the shrine of Viracocha. If we may on this basis
draw the surmise that the center of Tawaintisuyu, too, was dedicated to
Saturn, it would then follow that the Coricancha was a temple of Saturn,
and Viracocha, the chief object of worship in that shrine, was none
other than Saturn.
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From: *Irkv Prasad* posted at 19/06/2009 09:22:51 send a comment
prior to world war around 5000 bc there was a lot of similarity in
culture and philosophy through world.After war around 5000 bc from
developed stage of civilisation people have fallen down to a lower stage
due to no communication with other communities which was existing
globally earlier.Individual communities have modified the
cultural,philosophical and scientific informations as needed at that
time and there are so many cultures,languages and philosophies but the
basic still remains same.Europe was the worst effected during and after
war and the people in Europe have rolled back many centuries in
civilisation.But they have recoverd faster than others but in one
direction, that is to supress other cultures and communities. In this
process much of historical information got lost and what ever could be
gaurded by seers has gone underground which can not be discovered easily
with out the guidence of seers.
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