Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 2,2): Zeus god of the dark sky (thunder and lightning): Appendixes and index (Cambridge, 1925)

1036

Appendix G

year, indeed, was not then in existence : this golden egg floated about for as
long as the space of a year. 2 In a year's time a man, this Pra^apati, was pro-
duced therefrom... He broke open this golden egg'... or the birth of Brahma as
related in the Laws of Man 11 1. 5 ff. {The Laws of Mami trans. G. Biihler {The
Sacred Books of the East xxv) Oxford 1886 p. 2 ff.) : '5 This (universe) existed
in the shape of Darkness... 6 Then the divine Self-existent (Svayambhu,
himself)... appeared, dispelling the darkness... 8 He, desiring to produce beings
of many kinds from his own body, first with a thought created the waters, and
placed his seed in them. 9 That (seed) became a golden egg, in brilliancy equal
to the sun ; in that (egg) he himself was born as Brahman, the progenitor of the
whole world... 12 The divine one resided in that egg during a whole year, then
he himself by his thought (alone) divided it into two halves ; 13 And out of those
two halves he formed heaven and earth, between them the middle sphere,
the eight points of the horizon, and the eternal abode of the waters.' Later
Hinduism sometimes represented Brahma as born in a golden egg {Maha-
Bharata 12. 312. 1—7 cited by E. W. Hopkins The Religions of India Boston
etc. 1895 p. 411), and spoke of a bubble, which contained Visnu as Brahma
{Visnu Purana 1. 2. 45 f.). See further H. Jacobi in J. Hastings Encyclopaedia
of Religion and Ethics Edinburgh 1911 iv. 156—160 and the monograph of
K. F. Geldner Zur Kos?nogonie des Rigveda Marburg 1908.

{c) Persia. In Parsi speculation of Sassanian date Ahura the creator made
heaven like an egg with the earth for its yolk. Minokhired 44. 8—11 {Dind-i
Maindg-i Khirad trans. E. W. West {The Sacred Books of the East xxiv) Oxford
1885 p. 84 f.) : ' The sky and earth and water, and whatever else is within them
are egg-like (khaiyak-du), just as it were like the egg of a bird. 9. The sky
is arranged above the earth (L 19 adds 'and below the earth '), like an egg, by the
handiwork of the creator Auharmasd; (10) and the semblance of the earth, in
the midst of the sky (L 19 has 'and the earth within the sky'), is just like as it
were the yolk amid the egg; [(n) and the water within the earth and sky is such
as the water within the egg.]'. Cp. Plout. de Is. et Os. 47 eld' 6 fiev 'Qpopdfys rp\s
eavrbv av^rjaas aTrearrjcre tov rjXlov touovtov bcrov 6 rjXios rrjs yr/s dcpiaTrjne, jcori tov
ovpavbv aarpon eKoaprjcrev • eva fie dcrrepa npb ttuvtcov olov (jiuXaica nai itpodirnqv
iyKOTtuTTqae tov aelpiov, aXXovs fie Troirjcras rerrapas kcil eiKOcri deoijs els d>bv edrjnev.
at fie V7rb tov ' Apeipaviov yevopevoi na\ avroi toctovtol durprjcrav to a>6v ■ oBev (so
D. Wyttenbach, after Xylander, for diarprjaavros ro wov yavcoBev) dvapepiKrai ra
Kcina tois dyadois with the comments of R. Eisler WeltenmantelundHi7nmelszelt
Miinchen 1910 pp. 410 n. 2 f., 414 n. 2, 537 and J. H. Moulton Early Zoroas-
trianism London 1913 p. 402 n. 4.

{d) PHOINIKE. Of the Phoenician cosmogony we have a threefold account,
(i) Eudemos of Rhodes ap. Damask, qicaest. de primisprincipiis 125 ter (i. 323,
I ff. Ruelle) SiScoi'ioi fie Kara rov avrbv crvyypacpea ivpb iravraiv Xpovov VTrortdeuTcu
kcu YldOov Kal 'OplxXrjv, Ylodov fie nai 'Opl^Xrjs piyevrav cos dvelv dp^cov 'Aepa
yevio~6ai nai Avpav, 'Aepa pev tiKparov rov vorjrov Trapa$r)\ovvTes, Avpav fie to e'£
avTov ntvovpevov tov votjtqv ^(OTLkov ttpoTinrcopa. TrdXiv fie in tovtcov dpcpolv 'ilrov
yewrjdrjvai Kara tov vovv, oipai tov vot]tov. Ti2rof is hardly to be identified with
either of the mythical personages so named (O. Hofer in Roscher Lex. Myth. iii.
1231 f.) ; nor shall we venture with Gruppe Cult. Myth, orient. Rel. i. 349 to take
the word as turo?, 'the horned owl' (though this bird with crook and flail appears
on the coinage of Tyre : see Imhoof-Blumer and O. Keller Tier- und Pflanzen-
bilder auf Miinzen und Ge?nme7i des klassischen Alter turns Leipzig 1889 p. 32
pi. 5, 22, O. Keller Die antike Tierwelt Leipzig 1913 ii. 38 f. pi. 1, 8—other