Axis mundi

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Mount Kailash, depicting the holy family: of Shiva and Parvati cradling Ganesha

The axis mundi (also cosmic axis, world axis, world pillar and center of the world) is a symbol representing the point of connection between sky and earth. It offers means of travel and correspondence between the two realms. It is also the place where the four compass directions unite, allowing treasure from heaven to be disseminated throughout the world. This places it at the center of the world: at its omphalos (navel), the world's point of beginning.[1]

The axis mundi appears in all cultures and takes many forms. The image is both feminine (an umbilical providing nourishment) and masculine (a phallus providing insemination). It may take the form of a natural object (a mountain, a tree, a vine, a stalk, a column of smoke or fire) or a product of human manufacture (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, church) or secular (obelisk, minaret, lighthouse, rocket, skyscraper).[2] The axis mundi features prominently in cultures utilizing shamanic practices or those with animist belief systems. Yet it appears just as prominently in the most technologically advanced cultures--wherever the impulse persists to link a tower with the idea of a "world center."

It comes naturally to think of one's own home and land as "the center of the world" because it is the center of one's known universe. The name of China--"Middle Kingdom"--expresses an ancient belief that the country stood at the center of the world.[3]

Mount Fuji, Japan

Within this familiar universe a specific place--often a mountain or other elevated place, where earth and sky come closest--comes to be regarded as the center of the center, the axis mundi. High mountains on every continent have come to be regarded as sacred by the peoples who live around them. Shrines are placed at the summit or base. Japan's highest mountain, Mount Fuji, has long symbolized the world axis in Japanese culture. Mount Kun-Lun fills a similar role in China. Sioux beliefs take the Black Hills as the axis mundi. Mount Kailash is holy to several religions in Tibet. In ancient Mesopotamia the cultures of ancient Sumer and Babylon erected artificial mountains, or ziggurats, on the flat river plain. These supported staircases leading to temples at the top. The pre-Columbian residents of Teotihuacán in Mexico erected huge pyramids featuring staircases leading to heaven.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page).

Reconstruction of Etemenanki, an ancient Mesopotamian ziggurat (based on Schmid).

Because the axis mundi is an idea that unites a number of concrete images, no contradiction exists in regarding multiple spots as "the center of the world." The symbol can operate in a number of locales at once. The ancient Greeks regarded several sites as places of earth's omphalos (navel) stone, notably the oracle at Delphi, while still maintaining a belief in a cosmic world tree and in Mount Olympus as the abode of the gods. Judaism has Mount Sinai and Mount Zion, Christianity has the Mount of Olives and Calvary, Islam has the Temple Mount (Dome of the Rock) and Mecca, said to be the place on earth that was created first. In addition to Kun-Lun the ancient Chinese recognized four mountains as pillars of the world.[4]

All sacred places constitute world centers (omphalos) with the altar or place of prayer as the axis. Altars, incense sticks, candles and torches form the axis by sending a column of smoke, and prayer, toward heaven. The architecture of sacred places often reflects this role. The stupa of Hinduism, and later Buddhism, reflects Mount Meru. Cathedrals are laid out in the form of a cross, with the vertical bar representing the union of earth and heaven as the horizontal bars represent union of people to one another, with the altar at the intersection. Pagoda structures in Asian temples take the form of a stairway linking earth and heaven. A steeple in a church or a minaret in a mosque also serve as connections of earth and heaven. Structures such as the maypole, derived from the Saxons' Irminsul, and the totem pole among indigenous peoples of the Americas also represent world axes. The calumet, or sacred pipe, represents a column of smoke (the soul) rising form a world center.[5]

Yggdrasil, the World Ash (Norse)

A plant can serve as the axis mundi. The tree provides an axis that unites three planes: its branches reach for the sky, its trunk meets the earth, and it roots reach down into the underworld. In some Pacific island cultures the banyan tree, of which the Bodhi tree is of the Sacred Fig variety, is the abode of ancestor spirits. The Bodhi Tree is also the name given to the tree under which Gautama Siddhartha, the historical Buddha, sat on the night he attained enlightenment. The Yggdrasil, or World Ash, functions in much the same way in Norse mythology; it is the site where Odin found enlightenment. Other examples include Jievaras in Lithuanian mythology and Thor's Oak in the myths of the pre-Christian Germanic peoples. Both the Trees of Life and the Knowledge of Good and Evil in Genesis function as cosmic centers. Each is said to stand at the center of the Garden of Eden (from which four rivers flow) and each confers a boon; they are two aspects of the same image. Bamboo, the plant from which Asian calligraphy pens are made, represents knowledge and is regularly found on Asian college campuses. The Christmas tree, which can be traced in its origins back to pre-Christian European beliefs, represents an axis mundi. More abstract tree representations appear in the form of the Sefirot in Kabbalism and in the Chakra system recognized by Hinduism and Buddhism. Entheogens are often considered to be the axis mundi, such as the Fly Agaric mushroom among the Evenks of Russia. [6]

Houses also serve as world centers. The hearth participates in the symbolism of the altar and a central garden partipates in the symbolism of primordial paradise. In Asian cultures houses were traditionally laid out in the form of a square oriented toward the four compass directions. A traditional Chinese home was oriented toward the sky through geomancy just as a palace would be. Traditional Arab houses are also laid out as a square surrounding a central fountain that evokes a primordial garden paradise. The nomadic peoples of Mongolia and the Americas more often lived in circular structures. The central pole of the tent still operated as an axis but a fixed reference to the four compass points was avoided.[7]

The Caduceus

A common shamanic concept, and a universally told story, is that of the healer traversing the axis mundi to bring back knowledge from the other world. It may be seen in the stories from Odin and the World Ash Tree to the Garden of Eden and Jacob's Ladder to Jack and the Beanstalk and Rapunzel. Anyone or anything suspended on the axis between heaven and earth becomes a repository of potential knowledge. A special status accrues to the thing suspended: a serpent, a victim of crucifixion or hanging, a rod, a fruit, mistletoe. Derivations of this idea find form in the Rod of Asclepius, an emblem of the medical profession, and in the caduceus, an emblem of correspondence and commercial professions. The staff in these emblems represents the axis mundi while the serpents act as guardians of, or guides to, knowledge.[8]

Traditional Expressions

Asia

Middle East

Europe

The Americas

Modern Expressions

Taipei 101 simultaneously evokes staircase, bamboo stalk, and pillar.

Axis mundi symbolism abounds in the modern world. A symbolic connection between earth and sky is present in all skyscrapers, as the term suggests, and other spire structures. Such buildings come to be regarded as "centers" of a civilization and icons of its ideals. The first skyscraper of modern times, the Eiffel Tower in Paris France, exemplifies this role. Taipei 101 in Taiwan, a twenty-first century descendant, unites the images of staircase, bamboo stalk, pagoda, pillar, and, at night, the candle or torch. The Washington Monument in the United States and capital buildings of all sorts fill this role. The Burj Dubai (United Arab Emirates) will fill the role as it adopts characteristically Arab axis mundi symbols.

The design of a tower emphasizes different elements of the symbol. Twin towers, such as the Petronas Towers (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) and World Trade Center (Manhattan), maintain the axis symbolism even as they more obviously assume the role of pillars. Some structures pierce the sky, implying movement or flight (Chicago Spire, CN Tower in Toronto, the Space Needle in Seattle). Some structures highlight the more lateral elements of the symbol in implying portals (Tuntex Sky Tower in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, The Gateway Arch in Saint Louis).[9]

Ancient traditions continue in modern structures. The Peace Pagodas built since the 1947 unite religious and secular purposes in one symbol drawn from Buddhism. The influence of the pagoda tradition may be seen in modern Asian skyscrapers (Taipei 101, Petronas Towers). The ziggurat has inspired a number of modern structures, including the headquarters of the National Geographic Society in Washington, DC and The Ziggurat housing the California Department of General Services. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright conceived the Guggenheim Museum in New York as an inverted ziggurat.

File:Romania 20060512 - Tirgu Jiu - Coloana fara sfarsit.jpg
The Endless Column by Constantin Brâncuşi (1938)

Modern artistic representations of the world axis abound. Prominent among these is The Endless Column (1938) by Romanian sculptor Constantin Brâncuşi. It takes the form of an umbilical or pillar uniting heaven and earth even as its repeating segments suggest infinity.

The long association of the cosmic pillar with knowledge gives it a prominent role in the scholarship. College campuses routinely give the axis mundi role to a landmark structure such as a clock tower, a bell tower, or a library tower. The building serves as the symbolic center of the collegiate "world" and an emblem of its ideals. The symbolism is also at work in the image of the "ivory tower," a common metaphor for academia.[10]

Individual homes continue to act as world axes, especially where Feng shui and other geomantic practices continue to be observed.

Axis mundi symbolism may be seen in much of the romance surrounding space travel. A rocket on the pad acts as a tower that creates a column of smoke as it pierces the sky at launch.[11] Astronauts embody the mythic story. Each embarks on a perilous journey into the heavens in the quest for knowledge; if successful the adventurer returns with a boon that benefits all the world. The motto on Apollo 13 insignia in 1970 stated the story succinctly: Ex luna scientia ("From the Moon, knowledge").[12]

Modern Storytelling

The axis mundi continues to appear in fiction as well as in real-world structures. Appearances of the ancient image in the tales and myths of more recent times include these:

File:WOO2.jpg
Emerald City in Oz

See also

  1. ^ [J. C. Cooper. An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Traditional Symbols. Thames and Hudson: New York, 1978.]
  2. ^ [Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrandt. The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols. Editions Robert Lafont S. A. et Editions Jupiter: Paris, 1982. Penguin Books: London, 1996. pp.61-63, 173-175]
  3. ^ [Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrandt. The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols. Editions Robert Lafont S. A. et Editions Jupiter: Paris, 1982. Penguin Books: London, 1996. pp.61-63, 173-175]
  4. ^ [Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrandt. The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols. Editions Robert Lafont S. A. et Editions Jupiter: Paris, 1982. Penguin Books: London, 1996. p.681]
  5. ^ [Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrandt. The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols. Editions Robert Lafont S. A. et Editions Jupiter: Paris, 1982. Penguin Books: London, 1996. pp.148-149]
  6. ^ [Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrandt. The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols. Editions Robert Lafont S. A. et Editions Jupiter: Paris, 1982. Penguin Books: London, 1996. pp.1025-1033]
  7. ^ [Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrandt. The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols. Editions Robert Lafont S. A. et Editions Jupiter: Paris, 1982. Penguin Books: London, 1996. pp.529-531]
  8. ^ [Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrandt. The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols. Editions Robert Lafont S. A. et Editions Jupiter: Paris, 1982. Penguin Books: London, 1996. pp.142-145]
  9. ^ [Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrandt. The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols. Editions Robert Lafont S. A. et Editions Jupiter: Paris, 1982. Penguin Books: London, 1996. pp.1020-1022]
  10. ^ [Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrandt. The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols. Editions Robert Lafont S. A. et Editions Jupiter: Paris, 1982. Penguin Books: London, 1996. pp.1020-1022]
  11. ^ [Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrandt. The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols. Editions Robert Lafont S. A. et Editions Jupiter: Paris, 1982. Penguin Books: London, 1996. pp. 18, 1020-1022]
  12. ^ Nasa Apollo Mission: Apollo 13. 2007-08-25
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