Note: This article has been published in Esamskriti.
Bull-Leaping on Indus Seals
Jumping over a bull was a popular sport amongst the Indus people. A seal from Banawali (c.2300 – 1700 BCE) shows an acrobat leaping over a bull. Another seal from Mohenjo-Daro (c.2600 – 1900 BCE) depicts two people participating in the sport simultaneously: one person jumps from the back of the bull and lands in front, and is shown in various stages of leaping, while another person jumps from the front.
Some scholars have wondered whether bull-leaping was a ritual associated with bull worship. Going by the seal images that seems unlikely. No ritualistic paraphernalia are depicted on the seals. Besides, jumping over a bull is a sign of domination and not of worship.
Incidentally, a bull-taming sport called Jallikattu is still performed annually in some parts of the state of Tamil Nadu in India, as a part of Pongal celebrations (Pongal is a four-day long harvest festival). Jallikattu, quite intriguingly, had started off as a wedding custom amongst the cowherd community since the time of Lord Krishna.
Jallikattu: A Tradition started by Krishna
Jallikattu is a sport of bull-taming or bull-grappling. In this sport, an agitated bull is released into the playing arena from an enclosure. The participants athletically leap on the bull, either trying to subdue it, or hold on to its hump long enough to grab the bag of coins tied to the bull’s horns as prize. These days, instead of a bag of coins, a token cloth is tied to the horns.
The ancient Tamil Sangam literature (3rd century BCE – 4th century CE) mentions bull-grapping as popular sport amongst the Velir chieftains who ruled in different parts of the ancient Tamil country. The Velirs or Ay-Velirs (the prefix Ay denotes the Ayar cowherd community) belonged to the Yadava dynasty of Krishna, who had migrated southwards, most probably after the collapse of the Indus Valley civilization (starting at around c.1900 BCE) and settled in different parts of Southern India. The relation between the Velirs and the Yadava dynasty of Krishna is testified by the Sangam Literature as well as multiple copper-plate charters of the Tamil kings.
In the book, Temples of Krsna in South India, T. Padmaja has made an interesting observation:
During the Late Bronze Age, bull-leaping and bull-taming begun to appear in other parts of the world such as Syria / Turkey, Egypt and Crete. This raises the question if migrating Indus tribes took this custom to distant lands, after the Indus Valley civilization began to collapse at around 1900 BCE due to a host of environmental factors.
Bull-Leaping in Syria
Bull-leaping emerged in the 15th century BCE in northern Syria and southern Turkey which was under Mitanni / Hittite rule during this period. Recently restored bull-leaping frescoes from the palace of Alalakh in southern Turkey, as well as scenes of bull leapers from seal impressions, confirm the popularity of this sport. Bull leaping was also depicted on a vase from Huseyindede Tepesi in Eastern Turkey.
It is well-known that the Mitanni were a people with Vedic antecedents. In 1380 BCE, the Hittites and the Mitanni had concluded a treaty (the Suppiluliuma-Shattiwaza treaty), which invokes the Vedic deities Mitra, Varuna, Indra and the Nasatyas.
The UNESCO funded study called History of civilizations of Central Asia, which included participating scholars from Iran, Afghanistan, India, China, Pakistan, Russia and Mongolia, concludes on the basis of a host of archaeological, cultural, and linguistic evidences that the Mitanni migrated to Turkey, Syria and Palestine, following the collapse of the Indus Valley:
Bull-Leaping in Egypt
Bull-leaping also arrived in Egypt in the late 15th century BCE. This is evident from a wall painting excavated from a Thutmosid palace in the Hyksos capital of Avaris in Egypt, possibly done during the reign of the 18th dynasty pharaoh Thutmose III. The painting shows the performers engaging in bull-leaping as well as bull-taming, thereby indicating that they are variations of the same sport.
The prevalence of bull-leaping in Egypt during the 18th dynasty can be explained by the migrations of the Kushite tribes from the Indus Valley. The Kushites, who captured Babylon in the 16th century BC, worshipped Vedic deities (Suriash, Maruttash, Indas, etc.). Sumerian inscriptions often refer to the Kushites as “Meluhha-Kasi”. Since “Meluhha” was a term used in the Sumerian region for the Indus Valley civilization, “Meluha-Kasi” is obviously a reference to the Kushites of the Indus Valley.
A number of Greek historians have stated that the Ethiopians, who were called Kushites, originally came from the Indus Valley. According to Eusebius, “a numerous colony of people emigrated from the banks of the Indus, and crossing the ocean, fixed their residence in the country now called Ethiopia.”[5]
Philostratus provides more details. He writes that the Ethiopians, an Indian race, dwelt in India under the rulership of King Ganges. But when they slew their king they were inflicted by a host of natural calamities which forced them to leave their homeland. They founded sixty cities along the path of their emigration, until they settled in the fertile land of Kush.[6] This suggests that the colonization of Ethiopia may have been triggered by a large-scale emigration of people from the Indus Valley when it started to collapse at around 1900 BCE.
When the Egyptian pharaohs Ahmose and Kamose drove out the Hyksos invaders from Egypt in c.1550 BCE, they had taken the financial and military help of their southern Kushite neighbors. The cult of Amun-Mut-Khonsu which was subsequently established at Thebes was of Ethiopian origin. E. A. Wallis Budge tells us that the, “Theban triad had nothing whatever to do with The Egyptian Book of the Dead, and we may suspect that they were either gods newly come up or gods of foreign derivation…they were the Trinity of Ethiopia and not of Egypt.”[7]
I had argued in a couple of previous articles titled "Krishna worship and Rathyatra Festival in Ancient Egypt?" and "The journey of Jagannath from India to Egypt: The Untold Saga of the Kushites" that this Ethiopian Trinity was symbolically equivalent to the Indian triad of deities Krishna-Subhadra-Balarama, and the Opet festival which was celebrated annually in Thebes, during the season of the flooding of the Nile, was identical in form and spirit to the Jagannath Rathyatra that is still celebrated in Puri, India.[8][9]
In view of this, it will not be amiss to suggest that the custom of bull-leaping in Avaris could have been introduced in the late 15th century BCE by the Kushites, who had migrated to Ethiopia from the Indus Valley, and subsequently played an important role in the Egyptian monarchy and the cult of Amun.
Nowhere, however, was bull-leaping more important than in the Minoan civilization that flourished on the Aegean island of Crete.
Minoan Bull-Leaping
Bull-leaping started to appear in Cretan art towards the beginning of the Late Bronze Age in c.1700 BCE. It was the centerpiece of Minoan social life. Bull-leaping frescoes were prominently depicted at the Great Palace at Knossos in Crete. The large ceremonial courtyard at the center of the Knossos palace complex probably served as the bull-ring as the major entrances leading to the central courtyard were adorned with paintings of processions and bull-leaping.
Minoan depictions of bull-leaping can be found on a number of seals made of gemstones. A Minoan bronze sculpture showing an acrobat leaping over a bull was fashioned using the lost-wax method – a technique that had been perfected by the Harappans. Since Crete had no natural sources of copper or tin to make bronze, and relied on an extensive maritime network to obtain these materials, it is a mystery how they acquired the skill to make these bronze statues.
One of the striking aspects of the Minoan society is that it was multicultural. The frescoes depict an admixture of men and women with white and brown complexion, implying that a substantial number of brown-skinned foreigners had settled in the island. When the British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans had discovered Palace of Knossos in Crete in 1900, he had surmised that the Minoans were refugees from Northern Egypt.
Could it be that a group of migrating Indus tribes settled in Crete sometime around 1700 BCE, carrying with them their bull-leaping sport, and other elements of their culture?
In the book, A New System or Analysis of Ancient Mythology (1773), the British scholar and mythographer Jacob Bryant had provided an exhaustive account of the migrations of the Kushites, based on various ancient sources. He mentions that certain islands, including Crete, were held jointly by the Europeans (sons of Japeth) and the migrating Kushites (sons of Ham), as documented in the Chronicon Paschale, a 7th-century Greek Christian chronicle of the world.
The Question of Genetics
One of the questions that naturally come up when we talk of a migration scenario is whether there is any genetic evidence for the same. And in this case, genetics does support this hypothesis.
One of the haplogroups that is common to the Indus Valley and the Mediterranean regions where bull-leaping sports were popular is the haplogroup J2 (M172). J2 is found in Crete, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Portugal with high frequencies ranging between 20 - 35 %. Studies show that J2 frequencies among Neolithic farmers (c.6000 BCE) in Anatolia and the Near East was very low (less than 7%) which means that there must have been an infusion of J2 migrants from elsewhere at a later date, which resulted in the high frequencies found in the present day.
Although Neolothic samples from South Asia have not yet been tested till date, what we do know is that J2 is found in high frequencies in the Indus Valley Region among the Parsis at 38.89%, the Dravidian speaking Brahui's at 28.18% and the Makrani Balochs at 24%. J2 is also found at high levels amongst the Dravidian speaking people of Southern India, which is not surprising since archaeological studies and literary sources indicate that a large-scale migration of people took place from the Southern Indus sites to the Southern Indian Peninsula subsequent to the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization stating at around 2000 BCE. The highest frequency of J2 in Southern India was observed among Tamil Vellalars of South India, at 38.7%, and amongst tribal groups such as the South Indian hill tribe Toda (38.46%), the Andh tribe of Telangana (35.19%), the Narikuravar tribe (57.9%) etc.
Therefore, if a migration of seafaring groups did take place from the Indus Valley to the Mediterranean regions starting at around 2000 BCE, it could have resulted in an increased frequency of the J2 haplogroup in this region as seen today. Moreover, as the Eupedia notes,
End Notes
[1] KLT, 103:63-64
[2] Dikshitar, Silappadikaram, p. 230.
[3] T. Padmaja, Temples of Kr̥ṣṇa in South India: History, Art, and Traditions in Tamilnāḍu (Abhinav Publications, 2002) 36.
[4] Vadim Mikhaĭlovich Masson, History of civilizations of Central Asia, Volume 1, (Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 1999) 372.
[5] Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol XVI, p 309
[6] Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, Book 3, from livius.org
[7] George St. Clair, Creation Records Discovered in Egypt: Studies in the Book of the Dead (1898) 404.
[8] Bibhu Dev Misra, "Krishna worship and Rathyatra Festival in Ancient Egypt?" 13 Mar.2011 <http://bibhudev.blogspot.in/2011/03/krishna-worship-and-rathayatra-festival.html>
[9] Bibhu Dev Misra, "The journey of Jagannath from India to Egypt: The Untold Saga of the Kushites", 27 Jan.2012 <http://bibhudev.blogspot.in/2012/01/journey-of-jagannath-from-india-to.html>
[10] Jacob Bryant, A New System or Analysis of Ancient Mythology (London, 1773)191.
[11] Eupedia, "Haplogroup J2" <https://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_J2_Y-DNA.shtml>
Bull-Leaping on Indus Seals
Jumping over a bull was a popular sport amongst the Indus people. A seal from Banawali (c.2300 – 1700 BCE) shows an acrobat leaping over a bull. Another seal from Mohenjo-Daro (c.2600 – 1900 BCE) depicts two people participating in the sport simultaneously: one person jumps from the back of the bull and lands in front, and is shown in various stages of leaping, while another person jumps from the front.
 |
| Fig 1: Impression of a Banawali seal from c.2300 – 1700 BCE, showing an acrobat leaping over a bull. Source: UMESAO 2000:88, No. 335 |
 |
| Fig 2: Mohenjo-Daro Seal No.312 depicting bull-leaping, from c.2600 -1900BCE. National Museum, New Delhi. Source: NMI |
Incidentally, a bull-taming sport called Jallikattu is still performed annually in some parts of the state of Tamil Nadu in India, as a part of Pongal celebrations (Pongal is a four-day long harvest festival). Jallikattu, quite intriguingly, had started off as a wedding custom amongst the cowherd community since the time of Lord Krishna.
Jallikattu: A Tradition started by Krishna
Jallikattu is a sport of bull-taming or bull-grappling. In this sport, an agitated bull is released into the playing arena from an enclosure. The participants athletically leap on the bull, either trying to subdue it, or hold on to its hump long enough to grab the bag of coins tied to the bull’s horns as prize. These days, instead of a bag of coins, a token cloth is tied to the horns.
 |
| Fig 3: Jallikattu scene from Madurai, 2014. Source: http://indianbullfight.blogspot.in |
In the book, Temples of Krsna in South India, T. Padmaja has made an interesting observation:
"A verse in Kalithokai[1] says that an Ay girl would not marry the man who was afraid to face a bull fight. This shows that ‘it was a custom in the cowherd community for young girls, until they were married, to select their own bulls from the common stall and to tend them. The bulls would then be let loose, and which ever young cowherd could successfully bring the beast under control in an open contest, was deemed the proper life-partner for the girl. Apparently, it was one of the ancient wedding customs of the Ayars. This custom also can be traced to their family deity Krsna, who curbed the fury of seven bulls coloured black, white and brown and married the girls who were tending them.’[2]"[3]So, apparently, bull-grappling, had not only started off as a wedding custom amongst the Ayar cowherd community, but the tradition was begun by Lord Krishna. This explains why jallikattu is most popular in Madurai, a city that is said to derive its name from Mathura, the place of birth of Krishna. Since the Indus Valley seals depicting bull-leaping / bull-taming have been dated to c.2600 BCE, we can infer that the era of the Mahabharata war and of Lord Krishna must have been prior to c.2600 BCE.
During the Late Bronze Age, bull-leaping and bull-taming begun to appear in other parts of the world such as Syria / Turkey, Egypt and Crete. This raises the question if migrating Indus tribes took this custom to distant lands, after the Indus Valley civilization began to collapse at around 1900 BCE due to a host of environmental factors.
 |
| Fig 4: Bull leaping and bull taming sports in the ancient world |
Bull-leaping emerged in the 15th century BCE in northern Syria and southern Turkey which was under Mitanni / Hittite rule during this period. Recently restored bull-leaping frescoes from the palace of Alalakh in southern Turkey, as well as scenes of bull leapers from seal impressions, confirm the popularity of this sport. Bull leaping was also depicted on a vase from Huseyindede Tepesi in Eastern Turkey.
 |
| Fig 5: Bull leaping scene on a vase from Huseyindede Tepesi, dating to the Hittite period c.1565-1540 BCE. Source: Wikimedia Commons / Klaus-Peter Simon |
The UNESCO funded study called History of civilizations of Central Asia, which included participating scholars from Iran, Afghanistan, India, China, Pakistan, Russia and Mongolia, concludes on the basis of a host of archaeological, cultural, and linguistic evidences that the Mitanni migrated to Turkey, Syria and Palestine, following the collapse of the Indus Valley:
“It seems very likely that simultaneously with the movement of the Kassites – and in any case before 1700 BC at the latest, or perhaps even earlier, at the end of the third millennium BC – the immigration of Proto-Indian groups into Hurrian territory began, led by the class of war-charioteers (maryannu). They brought with them a new species of horse, more suitable for the war-chariot, a new method for horse training, described by Kikkuli, the man of Hurri, in a treatise written in Hittite, and a perfected form of the chariot.
Through these important elements of their civilizations the Proto-Indians gave an impetus to the development of Hurrian society and, and to the organization of the Mitanni kingdom, many kings of which bore Proto-Indian names. The Proto-Indian tribal aristocracy spread also to Syria and Palestine where it brought about the formation of stage organization based on the class of war-charioteers. Proto-Indian linguistic influence was considerable on the vocabulary of horse-breeding, horse-training, social life and religion as shown by the following list of Proto-Indian terms borrowed by the Hurrians and other peoples of western Asia.”[4]Therefore, the appearance of bull-leaping in Syria and Turkey in the 15th century BCE could have been due to the migrations from the Indus Valley.
Bull-Leaping in Egypt
Bull-leaping also arrived in Egypt in the late 15th century BCE. This is evident from a wall painting excavated from a Thutmosid palace in the Hyksos capital of Avaris in Egypt, possibly done during the reign of the 18th dynasty pharaoh Thutmose III. The painting shows the performers engaging in bull-leaping as well as bull-taming, thereby indicating that they are variations of the same sport.
 |
| Fig 6: Fresco from Avaris, Egypt showing bull-leaping and bull-taming. Source: Penn Museum, Expedition Magazine 53.3 (December 2011) |
A number of Greek historians have stated that the Ethiopians, who were called Kushites, originally came from the Indus Valley. According to Eusebius, “a numerous colony of people emigrated from the banks of the Indus, and crossing the ocean, fixed their residence in the country now called Ethiopia.”[5]
Philostratus provides more details. He writes that the Ethiopians, an Indian race, dwelt in India under the rulership of King Ganges. But when they slew their king they were inflicted by a host of natural calamities which forced them to leave their homeland. They founded sixty cities along the path of their emigration, until they settled in the fertile land of Kush.[6] This suggests that the colonization of Ethiopia may have been triggered by a large-scale emigration of people from the Indus Valley when it started to collapse at around 1900 BCE.
When the Egyptian pharaohs Ahmose and Kamose drove out the Hyksos invaders from Egypt in c.1550 BCE, they had taken the financial and military help of their southern Kushite neighbors. The cult of Amun-Mut-Khonsu which was subsequently established at Thebes was of Ethiopian origin. E. A. Wallis Budge tells us that the, “Theban triad had nothing whatever to do with The Egyptian Book of the Dead, and we may suspect that they were either gods newly come up or gods of foreign derivation…they were the Trinity of Ethiopia and not of Egypt.”[7]
I had argued in a couple of previous articles titled "Krishna worship and Rathyatra Festival in Ancient Egypt?" and "The journey of Jagannath from India to Egypt: The Untold Saga of the Kushites" that this Ethiopian Trinity was symbolically equivalent to the Indian triad of deities Krishna-Subhadra-Balarama, and the Opet festival which was celebrated annually in Thebes, during the season of the flooding of the Nile, was identical in form and spirit to the Jagannath Rathyatra that is still celebrated in Puri, India.[8][9]
In view of this, it will not be amiss to suggest that the custom of bull-leaping in Avaris could have been introduced in the late 15th century BCE by the Kushites, who had migrated to Ethiopia from the Indus Valley, and subsequently played an important role in the Egyptian monarchy and the cult of Amun.
Nowhere, however, was bull-leaping more important than in the Minoan civilization that flourished on the Aegean island of Crete.
Minoan Bull-Leaping
Bull-leaping started to appear in Cretan art towards the beginning of the Late Bronze Age in c.1700 BCE. It was the centerpiece of Minoan social life. Bull-leaping frescoes were prominently depicted at the Great Palace at Knossos in Crete. The large ceremonial courtyard at the center of the Knossos palace complex probably served as the bull-ring as the major entrances leading to the central courtyard were adorned with paintings of processions and bull-leaping.
 |
| Fig 7: The bull-leaping fresco at the Great Palace at Knossos, Crete, dated to c.1450-1400 BCE. Two men are positioned at each end of the bull, while another somersaults over the bull. Source: Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain |
 |
| Fig 8: Bronze figurine of a Minoan bull leaper, Crete c. 1600 BCE, made using the lost-wax method. Source: Wikimedia Commons / Mike Peel |
 |
| Fig 9: Minoan Frescoes depict a multicultural society |
In the book, A New System or Analysis of Ancient Mythology (1773), the British scholar and mythographer Jacob Bryant had provided an exhaustive account of the migrations of the Kushites, based on various ancient sources. He mentions that certain islands, including Crete, were held jointly by the Europeans (sons of Japeth) and the migrating Kushites (sons of Ham), as documented in the Chronicon Paschale, a 7th-century Greek Christian chronicle of the world.
"In some places, as I have mentioned, they (Kushites) mixed with the natives, and held many islands in common with them. "These islands, which I have just specified, are those that are jointly held by the sons of Ham, and those of Japhet; and they are in number twenty and six…There were other islands occupied by these people, such as Sardinia, Crete, Cyprus” ...Thus by reciprocal evidences from the most genuine history it appears, that the Cuthites, Ethiopians, and Erythreans were the same people."[10]This suggests that a migration of Kushites from the Indus Valley to Crete was an well-accepted fact of the ancient times, and, by all indications, the migrants lived in harmony with the original inhabitants of the island.
The Question of Genetics
One of the questions that naturally come up when we talk of a migration scenario is whether there is any genetic evidence for the same. And in this case, genetics does support this hypothesis.
One of the haplogroups that is common to the Indus Valley and the Mediterranean regions where bull-leaping sports were popular is the haplogroup J2 (M172). J2 is found in Crete, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Portugal with high frequencies ranging between 20 - 35 %. Studies show that J2 frequencies among Neolithic farmers (c.6000 BCE) in Anatolia and the Near East was very low (less than 7%) which means that there must have been an infusion of J2 migrants from elsewhere at a later date, which resulted in the high frequencies found in the present day.
Although Neolothic samples from South Asia have not yet been tested till date, what we do know is that J2 is found in high frequencies in the Indus Valley Region among the Parsis at 38.89%, the Dravidian speaking Brahui's at 28.18% and the Makrani Balochs at 24%. J2 is also found at high levels amongst the Dravidian speaking people of Southern India, which is not surprising since archaeological studies and literary sources indicate that a large-scale migration of people took place from the Southern Indus sites to the Southern Indian Peninsula subsequent to the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilization stating at around 2000 BCE. The highest frequency of J2 in Southern India was observed among Tamil Vellalars of South India, at 38.7%, and amongst tribal groups such as the South Indian hill tribe Toda (38.46%), the Andh tribe of Telangana (35.19%), the Narikuravar tribe (57.9%) etc.
Therefore, if a migration of seafaring groups did take place from the Indus Valley to the Mediterranean regions starting at around 2000 BCE, it could have resulted in an increased frequency of the J2 haplogroup in this region as seen today. Moreover, as the Eupedia notes,
"there is a distinct association of ancient J2 civilisations with bull worship...Minoan Crete, Hittite Anatolia, the Levant, Bactria and the Indus Valley also shared a tradition of bull leaping, the ritual of dodging the charge of a bull. It survives today in the traditional bullfighting of Andalusia in Spain and Provence in France, two regions with a high percentage of J2 lineages."[11]If migrants from the Indus Valley settled in Minoan Crete, then it should be reflected in the broader social, religious, and technological aspects of the Minoan society. In my next article titled "Indus Valley Cultural Elements in Minoan Crete: Was it Due to Migration", I have discussed a number of commonalities between the Indus and Minoan cultures, which support the migration scenario.
End Notes
[1] KLT, 103:63-64
[2] Dikshitar, Silappadikaram, p. 230.
[3] T. Padmaja, Temples of Kr̥ṣṇa in South India: History, Art, and Traditions in Tamilnāḍu (Abhinav Publications, 2002) 36.
[4] Vadim Mikhaĭlovich Masson, History of civilizations of Central Asia, Volume 1, (Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 1999) 372.
[5] Encyclopaedia Britannica, Vol XVI, p 309
[6] Philostratus, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, Book 3, from livius.org
[7] George St. Clair, Creation Records Discovered in Egypt: Studies in the Book of the Dead (1898) 404.
[8] Bibhu Dev Misra, "Krishna worship and Rathyatra Festival in Ancient Egypt?" 13 Mar.2011 <http://bibhudev.blogspot.in/2011/03/krishna-worship-and-rathayatra-festival.html>
[9] Bibhu Dev Misra, "The journey of Jagannath from India to Egypt: The Untold Saga of the Kushites", 27 Jan.2012 <http://bibhudev.blogspot.in/2012/01/journey-of-jagannath-from-india-to.html>
[10] Jacob Bryant, A New System or Analysis of Ancient Mythology (London, 1773)191.
[11] Eupedia, "Haplogroup J2" <https://www.eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_J2_Y-DNA.shtml>
Our honoured Judges of the higher courts, instead of being led by the nose by Western multinational-funded PETA and its Indian sepoys mouthing animal cruelty, should ascertain ancient customs in our country and then write their judgments on subjects like Jallikattu.
ReplyDeleteR.Venkatanarayanan
True. PETA is such a joke. They cant do anything about Spanish Bullfighting where thousands of bulls are tortured and slaughtered every year, or game-hunting in America where millions of birds and animals are killed for sport, and they pounce on Jallikatu where a bull has never died in the history of the sport.PETA suffers from an attention seeking disorder and they habitually seek the "soft targets" to keep the funds flowing.
DeleteIt is disheartening to see the Supreme Court being influenced by their propaganda. It sets a very bad precedent. What next? Ban Diwali because a few guys burst banned firecrackers? Or ban Holi because some folks use banned colors? I hope that better sense will prevail in the higher courts.
Easy man, they're as bad on us with spanish bullfighting as they are with you and your festivities. We are all on the same side of the fight.
Deletethank you for collecting the article of Bull embracing. Tamil culture is pronominal in nature
ReplyDeleteThank you.
DeleteThanks
ReplyDeletethe dravidians are the original mediterranean and sumerian people one branch settled in the mediterranean the other branch went east Sumerians then to india via southern iran then there was trade connecting them again . The Minoans and Etruscans were in the Mediterranean with the dravidians this is before the roman or greek empire
ReplyDeleteI dont think it happened quite that way. The Indus tribes (from the Southern Indus Valley) who migrated to peninsular India became known as Dravidians. They preserved both the languages of the Indus Valley i.e. Sanskrit (for worship) and Dravidian as the vernacular. The Indus tribes (from the Northern Indus Valley) who migrated to the Gangetic plains retained Sanskrit as the language of worship, but they switched to the Prakrits as the vernacular with the spread of Buddhism.
DeleteThe Indus tribes who migrated westwards in many waves, became the Sumerians, and later the Kushites of Mesopotamia and Ethiopia. The Indus sea-faring tribes who settled in Crete, mixed with the original Minoans and created the Minoan palace culture.
So, the focal point of migrations was from the Indus Valley. Modern day Dravidians of Southern India represent just one of the many waves of migrations out of the Indus Valley.
http://atlanteangardens.blogspot.com/2014/04/dna-research-supports-cayces-atlantean.html
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing. Interesting write-up.
Delete"Could it be that a group of migrating Indus tribes settled in Crete sometime around 1700 BCE, carrying with them their bull-leaping sport, and other elements of their culture?
ReplyDeleteIn the book, A New System or Analysis of Ancient Mythology (1773), the British scholar and mythographer Jacob Bryant had provided an exhaustive account of the migrations of the Kushites, based on various ancient sources. He mentions that certain islands, including Crete, were held jointly by the Europeans (sons of Japeth) and the migrating Kushites (sons of Ham), as documented in the Chronicon Paschale, a 7th-century Greek Christian chronicle of the world."
I don't see why the Kushites would be from the Indus Valley. In Cush is connected to the Sudan.
And Egypt is older than the Indus Valley.
Also, the bull cult is likely to go back to the Wet Sahara period from 7,500 to 3,500 BC. This period is likely the origin of cattle herding cultures in Africa, of which the Masai are a surviving example, although cattle herding is very much part of Bantu history. Most likely from their own Nilotic origins (haplogroup E through E1b1a).
Tassili N'ajjer, Southern Algeria, in what is now the middle of the Sahara Desert.
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/z1AAAOSwt4xaUOXZ/s-l300.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/08/f3/03/08f3035d31de60ce3567dbc37315145f.jpg
"Bull Jumping" among the Hamer people of Ethiopia today.
https://img.theculturetrip.com/1024x/smart/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/21066743231_ab61c1560a_o.jpg
I have discussed the migration of the Kushites from the Indus Valley to Ethiopia in detail in a previous article titled: "The Journey of Jagannath from India to Egypt: The Untold Saga of the Kushites". Link: https://www.bibhudevmisra.com/2012/01/journey-of-jagannath-from-india-to.html
DeleteA number of ancient historians, including Eusebius and Philostratus have written that the Ethiopians (Kushites) had migrated from the banks of the Indus to Ethiopia. In fact, many ancient writers used to refer to the Ethiopians as Indi. Linguists have concluded that the Ethiopian script Ge’ez and Indian scripts such as Brahmi share so many similarities that the script must have been transferred from India to Ethiopia. The discovery of the source of the Nile was based on maps contained in Indian Puranic texts. There are many other cultural connections such as the use of the bamboo flute and the tabla, the presence of the caste system, the spicy cuisine which is mostly vegetarian, and the similarity between the injera and the dosa. And much more.
You can read about it in the above article. Overall, there can be very little doubt that a migration took place from the Indus Valley to Ethiopia, as mentioned by so many ancient historians.
If you wish to watch this beautiful Bull-Leaping tradition presently exercised by excellent gymnasts, just research the Spanish words "Recortes AND toros AND fuego" in YOUTUBE.COM.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hW5MqQ_Nr9k
Thanks for sharing the link. Those were some lovely displays of bull-leaping. Great to see the tradition still being practiced.
DeleteI abhor cruelty of any kind, but I'm not here to comment on that. I note the IVC seal "impression of a Banawali..C2300-1700BCE",(https://www.academia.edu/2142088/Dancing_with_Bulls_An_exploration_of_Indus_iconography_showing_dynamic_interaction_between_humans_and_bulls) seems to be interpreted by some Western writers as not 'bull leaping 'because the 'five figures depicted around the bull' are 'unruly..'. What I see is different; and that these are NOT five figures but an ancient animation showing an attempt of ONE individuals unsuccessful attempt to jump a bull; The jumper is first shown trying to jump the bull and is gored, the next series of "individuals" show his/her contorted progress over the bull until finally the jump ends with a very bad landing, limbs bent out shape! When I apply this analysis to the seal, it make more sense! Whilst I am firmly evidence driven, I decry (mainly) Western scholars attempts to isolate European civilization, achievements, activities as sourced purely from European origins. This is a nonsense. Everything is derived from something, and most times it is from something else.
ReplyDeleteThanks for leaving your response. Your interpretation of the Banawali seal is interesting and could well be correct. However, I see it as a "singe acrobat" shown in different stages of a successful leap over the bull...the bent limbs being artistic liberties. I agree with you on the short-sighted attempts of Western scholars to isolate the European civilization. There is a lot of emerging evidence that ancient trade networks extended all over the world, and cultures everywhere interacted and assimilated information and customs from one another. The isolationist world view appears to be dictated by nationalistic and ethnic pride, more than anything else.
Delete