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Sphinx of India?
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 11:15 am
by Minimalist
http://www.archaeologychannel.org/conte ... 700kW.html
Turn your speakers down unless Indian music is your thing.
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 11:27 am
by kbs2244
This brings up the question in my mind of
“When doses a Sphinx become a Gargoyle?”
Is part of the definition of a Sphinx the Lions body?
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 11:33 am
by Beagle
Very interesting. I'm wondering how old those figures are, especially in relation to the Egyptian sphinx.
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 11:36 am
by Ishtar
Thanks for that, Min.
I think the so-called Sphinx of India (man-lion) is probably the half man, half lion incarnation of Vishnu called Narasimha.
I've never connected Narasimha to the sphinx in Egypt before mainly because he's usually shown with the face of a lion and the body of a man in recent art.
Btw, I liked the music!
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 11:43 am
by Beagle
http://www.geocities.com/sphinxofindia/art.html
The earliest textual reference to the sphinx of India is found in the Yajur Veda. The earliest known depictions in stone of sphinxes are found in central and north-west India and date to the 1st century BCE till the 2nd century CE. They are found among the decorations of Hindu, Buddhist and Jain shrines. And they show distinct Hellenistic influences especially in that they often have wings of the type typical of Greek sphinxes.
From a link on the OP.
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 11:44 am
by kbs2244
Do they have Lions in India?
I thought the great cat od India was the Tiger.
Are there Lions East of the Indus?
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 11:51 am
by Beagle
kbs2244 wrote:Do they have Lions in India?
I thought the great cat od India was the Tiger.
Are there Lions East of the Indus?
http://www.asiatic-lion.org/distrib.html
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 12:04 pm
by kbs2244
So, if the lion is not native to the area,
the idea has to have been imported.
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 12:30 pm
by Minimalist
Btw, I liked the music!
You probably like Indian food, too!
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 1:24 pm
by Ishtar
Yes, I like south Indian food, with lots of coconut milk and parathas and roti ... yum yum!
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 2:24 pm
by Minimalist
To each his own.
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 3:54 pm
by Beagle
kbs2244 wrote:So, if the lion is not native to the area,
the idea has to have been imported.
Last lion recorded from the southern end of its Indian range killed at Rhyl in Damoh district, near the Narmada river, in the cold season of 1847-1848 (Kinnear 1920).
s.
Fifty lions were killed in the district of Delhi between 1856-1858. Twenty-five years later Blanford (1891) wrote that "in India the lion is verging on extinction."
This is from the above website KB. It seems there were lions in India.
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 5:18 pm
by Ishtar
Well, the Srimad Bhagavatham records the story of Narasimha the Lion God, half man and half lion.
There's the usual controversy over the dating thus:
Historical scholarship suggests that the text was written in the 9th or 10th century as part of the development of the bhakti traditions. However, Hindu religious tradition holds it to be one of the works of Vyasa written at the beginning of Kali Yuga (about c.3100 BCE).
Some argue that the Purana's mention of the Vedic Sarasvati River as a great river (maha-nadi) is evidence of the Purana's traditional date,[5] since the river dried up about 2000 BCE. Interdisciplinary and intertextual studies are appearing which try to confirm the ancient status of this Purana. However, linguists and indologists point to the possibly allegorical meaning of this phrase: the River of Sarasvati is the River of Wisdom, indeed a maha-nadi, a Big Stream.
Obviously, the last sentence is usual bollox inserted by Witzel et al. He interprets the whole of the Vedas literally until he comes to something that doesn't fit in with this theory, and then he goes: "Oh, but it's allegorical." Grrrr!
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 5:23 pm
by Forum Monk
The movie seems to be no longer be working - or is it my PC?
Posted: Tue Jan 15, 2008 5:32 pm
by Ishtar
It's working for me FM. But you might have to click at the top to allow Activex.
Anyway, this is Narasimha.
The poor chap spreadeagled on his lap and being clawed to death is the king of the demons, Hiranyakasipu. So you see...it had it coming!
