By Alain Daniélou
Shiva and Dionysus are the Hindu and Greek gods of magical strength, intoxication, ecstatic sexuality, and transcendence who begin us into communion with the inventive forces of existence. Revealing the earliest resources of the traditions of Shiva and Dionysus, Alain Danielou reconstructs the cloth of our historic dating with construction, vividly pertaining to practices that have been saw from the Indus Valley to the coasts of Portugal at the least six thousand years ago.
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Additional info for Gods of Love and Ecstasy: The Traditions of Shiva and Dionysus
Sample text
T h e Atharva Veda is the part of the ancient religion w h i c h was adopted by the Aryans, and thus corresponds to the Mycenaean religion, that is, to what the Achaeans had assumed f r o m the M i n o a n religion. However, the m a i n texts describing the authentic rites, myths and practices of pre-Aryan Shivaism are found i n other kinds of works, called Puranas (historical books), Agamas (traditions) and Tantras (initiatory and magic rites). T o these should be added the ancient Sankhya (cosmology) and the texts on Yoga, a technique whose o r i g i n is Shivaite and pre-Aryan.
A . Ross, Primitive Erotic Art, p. ) Dionysus is also represented naked w i t h long hair, when he does not wear the saffron-coloured monastic robe. " T h e gods and sages were created naked. " (Linga Purdna, I , chap. ) T h e Purana legends portray 54 A S P E C T S A N D L E G E N D S OF T H E G O D Shiva as a libidinous adolescent roaming naked in the forest, charming the wives of the proud ascetics w h o wish to conquer heaven by their will-power. Shiva humiliates the ascetics, seduces their wives and, scattering his seed here and there, makes precious stones and holy places appear on the earth.
Well-known and widespread in early religions, and many examples of it occur in the Celtic literatures. I n the Irish mythological story. T h e D e s t r u c t i o n of Da Derga's H o s t e l ' . . [the king'sj bird-father told h i m . : ' A man stark naked, w h o shall go at the end of the n i g h t along one of the roads of Tara, having a sling and a stone, he shall be k i n g ' . " ( A . Ross, Primitive Erotic Art, p. ) Dionysus is also represented naked w i t h long hair, when he does not wear the saffron-coloured monastic robe.