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September 7, 2007
Two Goats for Akash Bhairab and a 757
From Wednesday's Reuters,
Officials at Nepal's state-run airline have sacrificed two goats to appease Akash Bhairab, the Hindu sky god, following technical problems with one of its Boeing 757 aircraft, the carrier said Tuesday.Nepal Airlines, which has two Boeing aircraft, has had to suspend some services in recent weeks due the problem.
The goats were sacrificed in front of the troublesome aircraft Sunday at Nepal's only international airport in Kathmandu in accordance with Hindu traditions, an official said.
Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars has his own take on this. My view is a slightly different from Ed's but results in the same thing. One sees in this sacrifice another example of what I was addressing the other day when I looked at the liver and lung models from Ugarit: a purely deductive approach to natural phenomenon. If X, then Y. In this case, "if X, then Y" is followed by "if Y, then Z." If the plane won't fly (X), then the sky god is upset (or may be upset) (Y). If the sky god is upset (Y), then sacrifice two goats (Z). On other occasions, the final apodosis might be "sacrificed three buffaloes."
As I indicated, it is not totally without logic. It very strictly follows the logic of traditional practice and thought. It even has an empiricism element: the plane won't fly. When a properly trained practitioner at Ugarit read a lung or liver, he or she was looking at nature in an effort to discover the will of the gods and hopefully to modify that will for some perceived human good. Of course, what most of us call logic these days is quite different. Most of us look at nature to learn about nature and to modify it for some perceived human good. At least most of us do this in most areas on consideration. But some of us still turn to traditional "logic" in some aspects of our discourse.
Posted by Duane Smith at September 7, 2007 9:43 AM | Read more on Religion |
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Comments
The reading of organs was definitely similar to a kind of "science". Ancient people certainly would have perceived it as such. It's fun to contemplate that these organ-extraction rituals are the precursors to modern-day surgery. Perhaps even the most irrational customs can eventually effect some logical good.
FYI, Etruscans also examined livers, but strangely some still think it's a "mystery" where they originated from despite Herodotus clearly pointing to Lydia. Say, Lydia is right by you and those Ugarites. Gee, imagine that.
There is an Etruscan bronze liver model from Piacenza that details how they sectioned off a sheep's liver according to the various areas that they believed were the domain of such-and-such a deity. Strangely, no one has really bothered to study what connections there are between Etruscan and Near East haruspicy. I guess that would just ruin the 'Etruscan mystery'.
Etruscan scribes had allegedly written books detailing this divination. What I would kill for one of those ancient books in my hands. WHAT I WOULD KILL!! :) (Okay, Glen, put down the knife. No one needs to get hurt, hehe.) But alas, these books were burned, destroyed, stolen or what-have-you. Blame the Vatican, I guess. Sigh. Anyways, I wonder how these Etruscan books might have been structured and I'm guessing it was a lot like these Ugaritic texts.
Posted by: Glen Gordon at September 8, 2007 9:32 AM
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