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A cosmology describes the order of the cosmos. The cosmos is not, however, the same as the universe. “Cosmos” is related to “cosmetic;” a cosmology is not just what is, it is what is as seen in a way that is not only ordered but beautiful. It is a way of making sense of things.
It is thus not a literal representation of physical reality. Like myths, religious cosmologies were most likely once believed to be that; like myths, we have relegated them to meaning rather than to physicality. This is not a demotion, though. Instead of simply accepting a cosmology as fact, we are forced to look at it to see what truths it does convey.
What I’m interested in here is the Indo-European cosmology. I won’t have the time or space to give all the evidence for reconstructing it, so I will have to limit myself to a description and some examples.
The Indo-European cosmology is, like most, organized around a center. This center is composed of two things: a tree (in some traditions a mountain) and a well. On the simplest level, the tree is what goes up and the well is what comes up. But things are rarely so simple.
A few examples of Indo-European cosmologies will be helpful. I’ve chosen ones from the edges of the Indo-European world, the Norse and the Zoroastrian, because not only are they from far apart cultures, but they are the most complete representations of the Cosmos in Indo-Europe. I will give them in a fairly skeletal form, since the details are not relevant to this discussion.
The Norse cosmology is well-known. The center of the Cosmos is the ash tree Yggdrasill. Its roots run into a number of realms: the worlds of the gods, elves, giants, men, etc. They also run into a well. (The Eddas give three wells. Paul Bauschautz, however, argues that this is an elaboration of an original single well, and I am inclined to agree with him.) From this well the Norns, the mistresses of the way the Cosmos is structured, water Yggdrasill. From the branches of the tree honeydew drops into the sea which surround the earth; this sea, presumably, feeds the well. (“Grimnismal” 25 26; Sturluson pp. 17 - 19.)
The Zoroastrian cosmology tells of a stone sphere, forming the sky above us, and a matching bowl below us. The earth floats on the waters that fill this bowl, which means that the waters both support and surround the earth. There are actually seven realms within these waters, originally one, but broken apart by the Spirit of the Lie. In the center of these realms is Mt. Hara. From its top water flows down and passes through all seven worlds before returning to the sea, from which it ascends Mt. Hara again in order to flow out again.
The similarities are striking. The differences become fewer when the Zoroastrian hom ritual (which seems to reflect a version of the cosmology) is examined; twigs from a pomegranate tree are pounded in a mortar, mixed with other things, including milk, and the resultant mixture poured into a well by the pomegranate tree (Flattery and Schwartz, p. 67).
The commonalities are these, then: water flows up in the center of the world, and ascends the central pillar. This water is then transformed in some way by the pillar or the world it supports, and the transformed water is returned to the sea from which it originally came. The process is then eternally repeated. A similar pattern is found throughout the Indo-European world.
It is a well-known fact that the structure of a cosmology finds its reflection in the rituals of a culture which believes in it. If we look at both the Norse and Zoroastrian cosmologies with that in mind, we notice something remarkable. Each is a closed system, but neither is a static system. There is always something going on. The well feeds the tree, the tree feeds the well; the sea comes up through the mountain, the water coming down from the mountain flows into the sea.
That it is a living system is an important observation; the Indo-European Cosmos does not exist as a crystal, once and for all established, but rather is a growing, changing system, constantly rejuvenated. This observation alone would be sufficient to repay us for the trouble of investigating the Indo-European cosmology.
There is something even more important here, though. Ask yourself: how does this rejuvenation happen? What is it about this cycle that causes it? What is so special about this back and forth motion?
The answer to these questions is the biggest fact about the Cosmos. It may be simply put: relationships are created and maintained through the exchange of gifts.
That the Indo-Europeans saw the Cosmos in this way is no surprise. Indo-European society was based on the exchange of gifts; people were bound together though such exchanges. Or maybe it is the other way round. Maybe people are bound together that way because the Cosmos is. Maybe the exchange found in the Cosmos between tree and sea, or between sea and land, is a part of our very nature, and leads us to create relationships in such a way. Whichever it may be, it is clear that society and Cosmos reflect each other.
To express this form of reciprocity, the Proto-Indo-Europeans had an interesting word: *ghosti-. A *ghostis is someone with whom one has a reciprocal obligation of hospitality. The word is the source of English “guest” and “host,” and that tells us something right away. Not only does it reflect the fact that guest and host are bound together, that you can’t have one without the other, but that the one who is guest on one occasion is obligated to be a host on another if the relationship is to be truly reciprocal. Guest and host were bound together so tightly, that is, that one word described them both. They were each a *ghostis, and they were each *ghostēs to each other.
The tree and the well are also ghostēs. The well feeds the tree; it is the tree’s host. The tree feeds the well; it is the well’s host. And so their relationship is established, each acting in turn, and so it is strengthened, each acting in turn.
So the Cosmos operates by the ghosti-principle. So human relationships operate by the ghosti-principle. But this article is about ritual. We can add one more item to the list: ritual operates by the ghosti-principle.
The one essential element of an Indo-European ritual that is addressed to a divine being is an offering. We reach out to the gods, whether with a sacrifice, or an offering, or a prayer; we place these before the gods as gifts, with open hands. We place them and we wait. We have set a banquet for the gods and have invited them to it. We have set ourselves up as potential hosts.
And guess what; they come. They come to our banquet and feast with us. They are our guests, and we are their hosts; we celebrate a meal together.
When the feast is over, the gods go their way and we go ours. But now the wonderful thing happens. The gods have been our guests. They are now, by the very nature of the method by which the Cosmos operates, obligated to act as hosts. They therefore lay out their own banquet for us -- they grant us the blessings we have asked for. And we come to their banquet and accept their gifts. In that moment, bingo: a relationship is established. We and the gods have become ghostēs to each other. This reciprocal relationship will continue and will grow each time that gifts are given by us to the gods and by the gods to us.
We see then that what is observed in the working of the Cosmos is found both in human society and in the relationships between us and the gods. The ghosti-principle forms the root of all three.
Human society is ghosti. Sacrifice is ghosti. Prayer is ghosti. All of these are ghosti. Ghosti is the key which opens the door of Indo-European religion. And why not -- it is written into the workings of the Cosmos.
References
Bauschatz, Paul C. Urth's Well. Journal of Indo-European Studies 3:1 (Spring, 1975), pp. 53-86.
Boyce, Mary (ed. and tr.). Textual Sources for the Study of Zoroastrianism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.
Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1959 (1957).
Flattery, David Stophlet, and Schwartz, Martin. Haoma and Harmaline: The Botanical Identity of the Indo-Iranian Sacred Hallucinogen “Soma” and its Legacy in Religion, Language, and Middle Eastern Folklore. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1989.
Mallory, J. P. and Adams, D. Q. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997.
The Poetic Edda. tr. Lee M. Hollander. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1962.
Sturluson, Snorri. Edda. tr. Anthony Faulkes. Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle Co., 1987.
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