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Vasilkov Ya. The Peacock as the Bird of Paradise: A Comparative Study

Ya. Vasilkov 
Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences
St. Petersburg, Russian Federation
ORCID: 0000-0001-5508-5900
E-mail: yavass011@gmail.com

 

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ABSTRACT. In India the peacock was domesticated and exported to Sumer as early as the era of the Indus Valley Civilization. Funerary urns of the “Late Harappan” Cemetery H culture reveal mythological ideas associated with peacocks: their role was to conduct souls to the other world. The peacock’s ability to kill and eat serpents and yet be immune to their poison gave rise to its link with immortality and rebirth. The pre-Aryan mythology of the peacock was passed down to the archaic worldview of early Indo-Aryans. The spread of soteriological religions that gave the highest value to the cessation of any rebirth relegated the image of the peacock as a psychopomp to India’s cultural margins. In Indian Classical poetry, the connection between peacocks and the rainy season comes to the fore, the peacock’s “dance” being associated with the renewal of life, fertility and the seasonal awakening of sexual desire. In Viṣṇuism, the peacock is a constant witness to Kṛiṣhṇa’s love games and it is present both in Gokula, the heavenly paradise, and in Vṛndāvana, the earthly one. In the middle of the 1st millennium BC, peacocks traveled to Greece via Persia and later to Rome. The mythology of the peacock that took shape in ancient Greece and Rome shared basic motifs with Indian archaic mythology. The peacock became a sacred bird linked with metemphsychosis ideas and the soul’s immortality. In the Roman Empire, a peacock was the bird of the Empress, while the eagle was a symbol of the Emperor. After the Empress’ death a peacock was thought to carry her up to heaven. Christianity turned the image of the peacock into an important symbol linked with the immortality of the soul, resurrection, the mystery of communion and bliss in paradise. The article seeks to identify factors that might have contributed to forming similar peacock mythologies in distant world regions where direct borrowing can be ruled out.

 

KEYWORDS: peacock, psychopomp, paradise, Indian mythology, comparative mythology

 

DOI 10.31250/2618 -8600 -2023 -2 (20) -74-92
UDK 7.046

 

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