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Axis mundi

"Navel of the World" redirects here. For other uses, see Navel of the World (disambiguation).
This article is about the connection. For the album, see Axis Mundi (album).

18th-century illustration of Mount Kailash, depicting the holy family: Shiva and Parvati, cradling Skanda with Ganesha by Shiva's side

In astronomy, axis mundi is the Latin term for the axis of Earth between the celestial poles. In a geocentric coordinate system, this is the axis of rotation of the celestial sphere. Consequently, in ancient Greco-Roman astronomy, the axis mundi[1] is the axis of rotation of the planetary spheres within the classical geocentric model of the cosmos.[2]

In 20th-century comparative mythology, the term axis mundi – also called the cosmic axis, world axis, world pillar, center of the world, or world tree – has been greatly extended to refer to any mythological concept representing "the connection between Heaven and Earth" or the "higher and lower realms".[3] Mircea Eliade introduced the concept in the 1950s.[4] Axis mundi closely relates to the mythological concept of the omphalos (navel) of the world or cosmos.[5][6][7] Items adduced as examples of the axis mundi by comparative mythologists include plants (notably a tree but also other types of plants such as a vine or stalk), a mountain, a column of smoke or fire, or a product of human manufacture (such as a staff, a tower, a ladder, a staircase, a maypole, a cross, a steeple, a rope, a totem pole, a pillar, a spire). Its proximity to heaven may carry implications that are chiefly religious (pagoda, temple mount, minaret, church) or secular (obelisk, lighthouse, rocket, skyscraper). The image appears in religious and secular contexts.[8] The axis mundi symbol may be found in cultures utilizing shamanic practices or animist belief systems, in major world religions, and in technologically advanced "urban centers". In Mircea Eliade's opinion: "Every Microcosm, every inhabited region, has a Centre; that is to say, a place that is sacred above all."[9]

Specific examples of cosmic mountains or centers include one from Egyptian texts described as providing support for the sky,[10] Mount Mashu from the Epic of Gilgamesh,[11] Adam's Peak which is a sacred mountain in Sri Lanka associated with Adam or Buddha in Islamic and Buddhist traditions respectively,[12] Mount Qaf in other Islamic and Arabic cosmologies,[13] the mountain Harā Bərəz in Zoroastrian cosmology,[14] Mount Meru in Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist cosmologies,[14] and Mecca as a cosmic center in Sufi cosmology (with minority traditions placing it as Medina or Jerusalem).[15]

  1. ^ as a declined form in Latin, plural axes mundorum
  2. ^ The term is used by Geminus in his Elementa, in early modern editions misattributed to Proclus as Commentarius in sphaeram. R. B. Todd, "The Manuscripts of the Pseudo-Proclan Sphaera", Revue d'histoire des textes 23 (1993), 57–71. The term continues to be used in modern astronomical works throughout the 18th century, e.g., Johann Samuel Traugott Gehler, Physikalisches Wörterbuch (1791), p. 688.
  3. ^ Mircea Eliade (tr. Philip Mairet). "Symbolism of the Centre". In Images and Symbols. Princeton, 1991. ISBN 069102068X. p.48–51
  4. ^ Mircea Eliade (tr. Philip Mairet). "Symbolism of the Centre". In Images and Symbols. Princeton, 1991. ISBN 069102068X. p.40
  5. ^ J. C. Cooper. An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Traditional Symbols. Thames and Hudson: New York, 1978. ISBN 0500271259.
  6. ^ Mircea Eliade (tr. Willard Trask). "Archetypes and Repetition". In The Myth of the Eternal Return. Princeton, 1971. ISBN 0691017778. p.16
  7. ^ Winther, Rasmus Grønfeldt (2014). "World Navels". Cartouche 89: 15–21.
  8. ^ Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrandt. A Dictionary of Symbols. Penguin Books: London, 1996. ISBN 0140512543. pp.61–63, 173–175
  9. ^ Mircea Eliade (tr. Philip Mairet). "Symbolism of the Centre". In Images and Symbols. Princeton, 1991. ISBN 069102068X. p.39
  10. ^ Seely 1991, p. 233.
  11. ^ Bilić, Tomislav (5 September 2022). "Following in the Footsteps of the Sun: Gilgameš, Odysseus and Solar Movement". Annali Sezione Orientale. 82 (1–2): 3–37. doi:10.1163/24685631-12340126. ISSN 0393-3180.
  12. ^ Muhammad, Bilal (2018). "Sri Lanka: The Axis Mundi and the Cradle of Mankind" (PDF). Berkeley Institute for Islamic Studies: 3–6.
  13. ^ Lebling, Robert (30 July 2010). Legends of the Fire Spirits: Jinn and Genies from Arabia to Zanzibar. I.B.Tauris. pp. 24–28. ISBN 9780857730633.
  14. ^ a b Panaino 2019, p. 24–25.
  15. ^ O’Meara, Simon (14 December 2022), "Mecca and Other Cosmological Centres in the Sufi Universe", Sufi Cosmology, Brill, pp. 205–233, doi:10.1163/9789004392618_012, ISBN 978-90-04-39261-8, retrieved 17 May 2024

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