Michael Cremo - Human Devolution - A Vedic Alternative To Darwin's Theory

Idols of the principal gods would regularly receive offerings of food and a beverage called chicha. The food was burned and the chicha poured on the ground. Wherever the god or departed soul actually was, it would receive the offering. In the case of the sun god, the Inca, the ruler, would burn the offering of food, but the chicha was poured into a large gold jar behind a statue of the sun god, and from there the chicha was poured into the hollow of a stone lined with gold. This stone stood in the plaza before the altar (Cobo 1893, p. 83).

The idols were worshiped in temples. The main temple of the Incas was in Cuzco. People came there from all over the Incan empire to worship. Rowe (1946, p. 293) says, “The ‘Temple of the Sun’ in Cuzco housed images of all the sky gods of the Inca and a host of lesser supernaturals besides; its most important image was not of the Sun but of Viracocha. The fields attributed to the Sun supported the whole Inca priesthood, not just the ministers of the Sun, and the Chosen Women served all the deities in the temples, not the Sun alone. Although a very important power in Inca religion, the Sun was merely one of many great powers recognized in official worship, and his importance was more theoretical than real.”

The Chosen Women, mentioned above, were dedicated to the service of the temple deities from childhood. They lived in cloisters near the temples of the Sun found in important towns throughout the empire. The virgins who lived in the cloister were called Mamaconas, “lady mothers.” The Mamaconas were considered to be the wives of the gods (Cobo 1893, pp. 146–147). The Mamaconas tended the sacrificial fire in the main temple at Cuzco, feeding it carved and painted pieces of a special kind of wood. Rising at dawn each day, they prepared the food for the Sun god, who was represented by a golden figure called Punchao (Cobo 1893, pp.

147–148). The figure was “a golden disk with rays and a human face” (Rowe 1946, p. 293). The figure stood facing the East, so that it was bathed with the first light from the rising sun. At this time, the priestesses offered the food into the sacrificial fire, saying, “Sun eat this food prepared for you by your wives.” The remnants of the offerings not placed in the fire were then taken by the temple priests, officials, and guards, as well as the priestesses. In the temples of the gods of the Vedic cosmology, there are daily offerings of food and drink. As in the case of the Incas, the remnants of such offerings are consumed by the servants of the deities.

The amautas were the philosopher priests of the Incas. They taught that human beings were composed of body and soul. The soul was an immortal spiritual substance, while the body was a temporary, material substance. The amautas equated the body with earth, because they saw that at death the body turned into earth. The amautas therefore called the body allpacamasea, which means “animated earth.” The human body was, however, distinguished from the bodies of animals, by adding the word runa, which refers to reason and intelligence (Garcilaso de la Vega 1869–1871, p. 126). The Incas accepted a future life. The pious souls went to reside with the sun god, whereas the impious went to a cold underworld, where there are only stones to eat.

The Incas practiced divination, consulting the supernatural to “diagnose disease, determine the truth of a confession, locate lost property, identify hostile sorcerers, choose between possible heirs, determine the most acceptable sacrifice to a deity being worshiped, and, in general, to settle any doubtful question” (Rowe 1946, p. 302). They also relied upon omens to determine their future conduct.

Divination could also be carried out by sorcerers ( omo ), who were in direct communication with spirits. People consulted them to find lost or stolen objects. The sorcerers could also provide information about things happening in distant places. The sorcerers called spirits by chanting spells or drawing figures on the ground. Some established communication with spirits while unconscious after drinking intoxicating beverages. Generally, they talked to spirits in the dark, and people could hear the voices of the sorcerer and the spirits (Rowe 1946, p. 302).

Zulu Cosmology

The Zulus are a Bantu speaking tribe living in the northeastern part of the Natal province of the Republic of South Africa. According to some Zulu informants, their cosmology includes not only a creator god but a more distant ultimate high god. The creator god, responsible for manifesting the visible world and the bodies of living entities, is called Umvelinqangi. The forefather of human beings is called Unkulunkulu. A Zulu informant of Callaway (1870, p.97) said that Unkulunkulu is the same as Umvelinqangi, the creator god given above. The informant said the ultimate god who existed before the creator god is simply called the King. The distinction is like that found in the Vedic system, between the ultimate god (known by names such as Krishna, Narayan, Vishnu) and the creator god (Brahma), who manifests the material planets and the forms of living things, including humans.

Sometimes it is said that the Zulu idea of an ultimate, or high, god came from contact with Christianity. But one of Callaway’s Zulu informants said (1870, p. 19), “And the King which is above we did not hear of him [first] from white men. In summer time, when it thunders, we say, ‘The king is playing.’ And if there is one who is afraid, the elder people say to him, ‘It is nothing but fear. What thing belonging to the king have you eaten?’ This is why I say, that the Lord of whom we hear through you, we had already heard of before you came. But he is not like that Unkulunkulu who, we say, made all things. But the former we call a king, for we say, he is above. Unkulunkulu is beneath; the things which are beneath were made by him.”

Callaway’s informant explained that it is the heavenly king, the high god above, who responds to sinful activities by striking one with misfortune. That is how his action is recognized. The informant said, “We know nothing of his mode of life, nor of the principles of his government. His smiting is the only thing we knew.” The heavenly king god does not come from Unkulunkulu, as everything else does. The informant said, “There is no connection between our knowledge of Unkulunkulu and of him. For we can give some account of what belongs to Unkulunkulu; we can scarcely give any account of what belongs to the heavenly king. We know much of what belongs to Unkulunkulu, for he was on this earth, and we can give an account of matters concerning him. The sun and moon we referred to Unkulunkulu together with the things of this world” (Callaway 1870, pp. 20–21).

Callaway’s informant objected to Christians who told the Zulus that the king of heaven made all things visible in this world. “We said that Unkulunkulu alone made them” (Callaway 1870, p. 21). The informant added, “And we black men, although some missionaries tell us that this king and that Unkulunkulu is the same, did not say that Unkulunkulu was in heaven; we said, he came to be, and died; that is all we said.” This parallels the Vedic conception, in which Brahma, the creator god, is mortal, and the ultimate high god, Krishna, is immortal. Apparently, Unkulunkulu has a heavenly abode. When asked about the whereabouts of the creator, some Zulu elders replied, “The Creator of all things is in heaven. And there is a nation of people there too” (Callaway 1870, p. 53).

A twentieth century Zulu philosopher, Laduma Madela, gives the following account of the creation. The creator god’s name is Umvelinqangi, which means “who created everything except the world which created him.” His wife’s name was Ma Jukujukwini. She is named after the place where creation took place, Ema Jukujukwini. At this place, the creator and his wife appeared “like mushrooms” (Bodenstein and Raum 1960, p. 169). After their appearance, they produced three children—Sitha, Nowa, and Nomkhubulwana, “the Princess who does not marry” (Bodenstein and Raum 1960, p.169). The earth is called Umhlaba. On the earth, the creator god erected four pillars. The creator god also created earths below the earth we see and heavens above the heaven we see. One of the Zulu informants said (Bodenstein and Raum 1960, p. 172), “Just as if you reach the horizon you always find another one beyond, so it is with the vault of heaven!”