The Chariot
A Cross-cultural Symbol of Mastery
Standing with feet
planted
firmly upon the earth, gaze reaching into the spacious blue of the
heavens, one planetary body dominates our firmament. The Sun in its
brazen glory reigns supreme above the world. In early civilizations, a
proliferation of Sun Gods, such as the Hindu Surya, Greek Helios,
Eyptian Ra, Persian Mithras and Roman Apollo, commandeered night into
day during daily passages across the sky, installed in brilliantly
gleaming chariots.
Horses
were already associated with Sun-Gods at the time Aryan invaders
introduced swift horse-drawn war vehicles into the Near East in the
second millennium, BC. Quickly teamed with the legend of the
Sun-King’s celestial vessel in the mythic thinking of the
times,
the chariot still stands as an icon of victorious conquest and military
might. In metaphysic, we see the charioteer as the spiritual warrior,
the one who is winning the battle within, and who quells the ego in
service to the higher self.
Garhwal School, c. 1820,
Philadelphia Museum of Art: A serene Krishna
guides Arjuna's chariot through the epic battlefield. The poetic Bhagavad-gita is
a tale told by Krishna,
the charioteer. It tells of the warrior Arjuna's inner struggles on the
eve of battle.
Portrayed
as a four posted, canopied, movable throne, the Sun Chariot’s
rotating, disk-like wheels constitute a whirling demonstration of the
cyclic nature of time, ruling vegetation: fertility, growth, decay. In
esoteric Buddhism, it is the "Great Vehicle" of Mahayana, providing a
means of transcendent spiritual attainment.
As a
cosmic medium, the magical chariot of mythology transports all manner
of heroes, deities and hybrids from among the roles of the
supernatural, serving as an intermediary between heaven and earth. In
the field of psychology, it represents the task the psyche performs as
a conveyance along a personal journey of self-discovery. Foreshadowed
by an ancient fascination with a polished and elegant solar carriage
driven by a Sun-King, the sheen of modern, "space-age" technology
displays a similar "jewel-like" quality in the precision manufacture of
glittering compact machines, vehicles and appliances.
The chariot appears in
Hebrew mystical tableaus of spiritual elevation as the divine merkabah of Ezekiel’s
vision, and in the radiant ascension of the Prophet Elijah in a fiery
chariot. Likewise, the "sweet chariot"
swinging low in the slave spirituals of African American origin is an
otherworldly coach of deliverance that reunites a weary human spirit
with heavenly peace.
Used
in an ongoing motif depicting ethereal command over elementary forces,
the chariot of the Cabalists was a holy container for the higher
principles in human nature. Seen in the Tarot as the 7th
Card, the Chariot, or Triumph, features a poised youth piloting a
chariot without reins, and illustrates the mastery of applied
spirituality - distilled will effortlessly triumphs over debased
cravings.
L.DiNoto 2004
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