3
Polar Symbolism;
the Lord of Peace and Justice
It is possible to connect the integral and original understanding of the regal function with a further cycle of symbols and myths that point back in the same one direction through their various representations and analogical transpositions.[1]
As a starting point, we may consider the Hindu notion of the cakravartin, or “universal king.” The cakravartin may be considered the archetype of the regal function of which various kings represent more or less complete images or even particular expressions whenever they conform to the traditional principle. Cakravartin literally means “lord” or “spinner of the wheel.” This notion brings us back again to the idea of a center that corresponds also to an inner state, to a way of being, or better yet, to the way of Being.
Actually the wheel also symbolizes sarhsara or the stream of becoming (the Hellenes called it κύκλος τής γενὲσεως, the “wheel of generation,” or κύκλος ανάγκης, “the wheel of Fate”). Its motionless center signifies the spiritual stability inherent in those who are not affected by this stream and who can organize and subject to a higher principle the energies and the activities connected to the inferior nature. Then the cakravartin appears as the dharmarāja, the “Lord of the Law,” or the “Lord of the Wheel of the Law.”[2] According to Confucius: “The practice of government by means of virtue may be compared to the polestar, which the multitudinous stars pay homage to while it stays in its place.”[3] Hence the meaning of the concept of “revolution,” which is the motion occurring around an “unmoved mover,” though in our modern day and age it has become synonymous with subversion.
In this sense royalty assumes the value of a “pole,” by referring to a general traditional symbolism. We may recall here, besides Midgard (the heavenly “middle abode” described in Nordic traditions), Plato’s reference to the place where Zeus holds counsel with the gods in order to reach a decision concerning the fate of Atlantis: “He accordingly summoned all the gods to his own most glorious abode, which stands at the center of the universe and looks out over the whole realm of change.”[4] The abovementioned notion ofcakravartin is also connected to a cycle of enigmatic traditions concerning the real existence of a “center of the world” that exercises this supreme function here on earth. Some fundamental symbols of regality had originally a close relationship with these ideas. One of these symbols was the scepter, the main function of which is analogically related to the “axis of the world.”[5] Another symbol is the throne, an “elevated” place; sitting still on the throne evokes, in addition to the meaning of stability connected to the “pole” and to the “unmoved mover,” the corresponding inner and metaphysical meanings. Considering the correspondence that was originally believed to exist between the nature of the royal man and the nature produced by initiation, in the classical Mysteries we find a ritual consisting of sitting still on a throne. This ritual appears to have been very important since it was sometimes equated with initiation itself. The term τεθρούισέυος, enthroned, is often synonymous with τελετεµέυος, “initiate.”[6] In fact, in some instances, in the course of an initiation the θρονισµός, or royal enthronement, preceded the experience of becoming one with the god.
The same symbolism is embodied in the ziggurat, the Assyrian-Babylonian terraced pyramid, as well as in the master plan of the capital of the Persian kings (as in Ecbatana) and in the ideal image of the cakravartin’s royal palace. In these places we find the architectural expression of the cosmic order complete in its hierarchy and in its dependence upon an unmoved center. From a spatial perspective this center corresponded, within the building itself, to the king’s throne. Similar to Hellas, in India we find forms of initiation that employ the ritual of the so-called maṇḍala. These forms dramatize the gradual ascent of the initiate from the profane and demonic space to a sacred space, until he reaches a center. A fundamental ritual symbolizing this journey is called mūkatābhiṣaka and it consists in being crowned or in being given a tiara; he who reaches the “center” of the maṇḍala is crowned as king because he is now believed to be above the interplay of the forces at work in the inferior nature.[7] It is interesting that the ziggurat, the sacred building towering above the city-state of which it was the center, was called “cornerstone” in Babylon and “link between heaven and earth” in Lhasa;[8] the theme of the “rock” and of the “bridge” is pretty much summed up in the Far Eastern expression: “third power between Heaven and Earth.”
The importance of these traces and correlations should not be overlooked. Moreover, “stability” has the same double dimension; it is at the center of the Indo-Aryan formula for consecration of the kings:
Remain steady and unwavering … Do not give in. Be strong like a mountain. Stay still like the sky and the earth and retain control of power at all times. The sky, the earth and the mountains are unmoved as unmoved is the world of living beings and this king of men.[9]
In the formulas of the Egyptian royalty, stability appears as an essential attribute that complements the attribute of “power-life” already present in the sovereign. And just as the attribute of “vital-force,” the correspondence of which with a secret fire has already been emphasized, “stability” too has a heavenly counterpart. Its hieroglyphic, djed, conveys the stability of the “solar gods resting on pillars or on light beams.”[10] These examples bring us back to the system of initiations, since they are much more than abstract ideas; like “power” and “vital-force”; “stability” too, according to the Egyptian tradition, is simultaneously an inner state of being and an energy, a virtus that flows from one king to the next, and which sustains them in a supernatural way.
Moreover, the “Olympian” attribute and the attribute of “peace” are connected to the condition of “stability” in the esoteric sense of the word. Kings “who derive their power from the supreme god and who have received victory at his hands,” are “lighthouses of peace in the storm.”[11] After “glory,”centrality (“polarity”), and stability, peace is one of the fundamental attributes of regality that has been preserved until relatively recent times. Dante talked about the imperator pacificus, a title previously bestowed on Charlemagne. Obviously, this is not the profane and social peace pursued by a political government—a kind of peace that is at most an external consequence—but rather an inner and positive peace, which should not be divorced from the “triumphal” element. This peace does not convey the notion of cessation, but rather that of the highest degree of perfection of a pure, inner and withdrawn activity. It is a calm that reveals the supernatural.
According to Confucius a man destined to be a ruler (the “virtuous”), unlike ordinary men, “rests in rectitude and is stable and unperturbed”; “the men of affairs enjoy life, but the virtuous prolongs it.”[12] Hence that great calm that conveys the feeling of an irresistible superiority and terrifies and disarms the adversary without a fight. This greatness immediately evokes the feeling of a transcendent force that is already mastered and ready to spring forward; or the marvelous and yet frightful sense of the numen.[13] The pax romana et augusta, which is connected to the transcendent sense of the imperium, may be considered one of the several expressions of these meanings in the context of a universal historical realization. Conversely, the ethos of superiority over the world, of dominating calm and of imperturbability combined with readiness for absolute command, which has remained the characteristic of various aristocratic types even after the secularization of nobility, must be considered an echo of that element that was originally the regal, spiritual, and transcendent element.
The cakravartin, besides being the “Lord of Peace,” is “Lord of the Law” (or cosmic order, ṛta) and “Lord of Justice” (dharmarāja). “Peace” and “justice” are two more fundamental attributes of royalty that have been preserved in Western civilization until the time of the Hohenstaufens and Dante, even though the political aspect predominated over the higher meaning presupposing it.[14] Moreover, these attributes were also found in the mysterious figure of Melchizedek, king of Salem, one of the many representations of the function of the “universal king.” Guénon has pointed out that in Hebrew, mekki-tsedeq means “king of justice,” while Salem, of which he is king, is not a city, but rather “peace,” at least according to Paul’s exegesis.[15] Tradition upholds the superiority of Melchizedek’s royal priesthood over Abraham’s. It is not without a deep reason that Melchizedek was present in the enigmatic medieval allegory of the “three rings,” and that he declared that neither Christianity nor Islam know any longer which is the true religion; moreover, the “royal religion of Melchizedek” was often upheld by the Ghibelline ideology in the struggle against the Church.
At this level, the expression “king of justice” is the equivalent of the previously mentioned dharmarāja, designating the “universal king.” From this expression we may gather that in this context, “justice” and “peace” do not have a secular meaning. In fact, dharma in Sanskrit also means “proper nature of ,” or the law typical of a certain being; the correct reference concerns the particular primordial legislation that hierarchically orders, in a system oriented upwards, every function and form of life according to the nature of every being (svadharma), or “according to justice and truth.” Such a notion of justice is also characteristic of the Platonic view of the state; this view, rather than an abstract “utopian” model, should be regarded in many aspects as an echo of traditional orientations from an even more distant past. In Plato the idea of justice (δικαιοσύνη), of which the state should be the embodiment, is closely related to that of οὶκειοπραγία or cuique suum, that is, with the principle according to which everybody should fulfill the function typical of his or her own nature. Thus the “king of justice” is also the primordial legislator, or he who instituted the castes, assigned the offices, and established the rites; or, in other words, he who determined the ethical and sacred system that was called dharmanga in Aryan India, and that in other traditions was the local ritual system that determined the norms for regulating individual and collective life.
This presupposes that the royal condition enjoys a higher power of knowledge. The capability to deeply and perfectly understand the primordial laws of human beings is the basis of authority and of command in the Far East. The Mazdean royal “glory” (hvorra-i-kayani) is also the virtue of a supernatural intellect. And while according to Plato[16] the philosophers (οἰσοϕοί) should be at the top of the hierarchy of the true state, for him the abovementioned traditional idea takes on an even more specific form. For Plato, wisdom or “philosophy” is understood as the knowledge of “that which is,” rather than the knowledge of illusory visible forms. The philosopher is one who can effectively formulate laws conforming to justice precisely because he has the direct knowledge of that which is supremely real and normative. The conclusion Plato draws is:
Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophers, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and these commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils, nor the human race itself.[17]
Footnotes
1. See R. Guénon’s Le Roi du monde (Paris, 1927), in which several corresponding traditions have been gathered and interpreted. [English trans. The Lord of the World (Ellingstring, 1983).]
2. According to this tradition, the “wheel” has also a “triumphal” meaning: its appearance as a heavenly wheel is the visible sign of conquerors’ and rulers’ destinies. Like a wheel, the chosen one will go forth, sweeping away and dominating everything on his path (see the legend of the “Great Magnificent One” in Dīgha Nikāya, 17). As far as the organizing function is concerned, we may recall the Vedic image of the “cosmic order’s (ṛta) bright and terrible chariot which confounds the enemies.” Ṛg Veda, 2.23.3.
3. The Analects, trans. R. Dawson (Oxford, 1993), 2.1.
4. Critias, 121.
5. R. Guénon, Autorité spirituelle et pouvoir temporel (Paris, 1929), 137.
6. V. Magnien, Les Mystères d’Eleusis (Paris, 1929), 196.
7. G. Tucci, Teoria e pratica dei mandala (Rome, 1949), 30–32; 50–51.
8. C. Dawson, The Age of the Gods (New York, 1933), 6.2.
9. Ṛg Veda, 10.173.
10. Moret, Royauté pharaonique, 42–43.
11. Corpus Hermeticum, 18.10–16.
12. The Analects, 6.21.
13. In ancient times the fulgurating power, symbolized by the broken scepter and by the pharaoh’s uraeus, was not a mere symbol; likewise many acts found in court ceremonies were not mere expressions of formalism and servile adulation of the pharaoh, but rather were induced by spontaneous sensations awakened in the subjects by the royal virtus. Somebody visited an Egyptian king of the Twelfth Dynasty, and later recalled: “When I came close to His Highness I prostrated myself and lost consciousness before Him. The god addressed me with friendly words, but I felt like I was suddenly blinded. I couldn’t think straight, my body went limp; my heart gave way and I knew the difference between life and death.” G. Maspero, Les Contes populaires de l’Egypte ancienne (Paris, 1889), 123.
See also The Laws of Manu, (7.6): “Like the Sun, he burns eyes and hearts and no one on earth is able even to look at him.”
14. Frederick II recognized that “justice” and “peace” are the foundation on which all kingdoms are built. “Justice” during the Middle Ages was often confused with “truth” and indicated the ontological dignity of the imperial principle. See A. De Stefano, L’idea imperiale di Federico II (Florence, 1927), 74. Among the Goths, truth and justice were often portrayed as regal virtues par excellence. These are all traces of the doctrine of the origins.
15. Heb. 7: 1–3.
16. The Republic, 5.18; 6.1.
17. The Republic, trans. B. Jowett (New York, 1937), 473.