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Vasilkov Ya. V. Heroes, kings and monsters in a cave under mountain (India, Caucasus, Balkans, Central Europe)

Yaroslav V. VASSILKOV — Doctor of Philology, Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Russia, St. Petersburg)
E‑mail: yavass011@gmail.com

 

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ABSTRACT. The starting point for the research was a unique common motif “the Wheel of Destiny/Time rotating in an underground cave” featuring in both the Indian epic “Mahabharata” and the Armenian epic “Daredevils of Sassoun”. The author is inclined to explain the coincidence by the parallel development and primary rationalization in two traditions of the archaic Indo-European (and not only Indo-European) mythological views. The reconstruction of these views is based on the material provided by myths and legends about a monster, king or hero confined to a cave or asleep in it. Earlier works concerned with the “king asleep in mountain” motif dealt with the stories found in the folklore of the three regions: the Caucasus, the Balkans and Central/Northern Europe. In the present article some episodes from the Indian epic (story of Parashurama who regularly emerges from his cave in the Mahendra mountain; five Indras confined in a mountain cave; the confinement of the defeated “former Indra”, Bali, in a cave) for the first time are recognized as belonging to the same circle of motifs and plots. The research has revealed that the structure of the motifs belonging to this circle is governed by the strong link that existed between the image of a cave and the mytho-ritual complex of ideas “birth — death — rebirth (fertility)”. The author suggests that this link might have been established in the earliest period of the humans’ cultural history (Middle and Upper Paleolithic).

 

KEYWORDS: epic, myth, folklore, “confined in a cave”, “king asleep in mountain”, cyclical view of time, cave art, worldview of the Paleolithic

 

УДК 398.22
DO I 10.31250/2618-8600-2019-3(5)-26-41

 

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