F. I. Buslaev, in his famous speech “On folk poetry in ancient Russian literature” in pre-revolutionary Russia, delivered in 1858, emphasized that “a clear and complete understanding of the fundamental principles of our nationality is perhaps the most significant question of both science and Russian life ". Trying to solve at least a small part of this problem today, we are obliged to turn to the still living folk tradition and try to consider it through the prism of the millennia-old past, in which “the basic principles of our nationality” are hidden. Let us note that in the East Slavic folk tradition in general, and in the North Russian in particular, such elements of culture have been preserved that are more archaic not only than the ancient Greek ones, but even those recorded in the texts of the most ancient monuments of Indo-European mythology - the Rig Veda, Mahabharata and Avesta.
Due to the fact that it is in the Vedic texts that a large number of descriptions and explanations of archaic Indo-European calendar rituals have been preserved, it seems necessary to use these texts as decoding texts when analyzing the East Slavic and, in particular, the Northern Russian calendar rituals. The possibility of turning to Vedic texts when considering Russian material is due to “both the greater degree of correspondence between Vedic and Russian due to the better preservation of archaisms in it (the Russian language) than in Western languages, and the greater proximity of the Russian (Slavic) mythological and poetic tradition to the Indo-Iranian ".
In those that survived until the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries. In the beliefs of northern Russian peasants, especially in stable calendar and ritual cycles, relics of the archaic Indo-European calendar, rooted in the depths of thousands of years, are clearly visible. Thus, the East Slavic pre-Christian picture of the world clearly differentiates two time cycles of the year: the period from the winter solstice (December 22) to the summer solstice (June 22) and the period from the summer solstice to the winter. The beginning of each of these cycles was clearly marked by calendar ritual actions: winter Christmastide and Kupala. Judging by some relics of rituals, as well as Scandinavian materials, in ancient times, winter Christmastide lasted a full lunar month or 28 days. Thus, among the Swedes, Christmastide “was known under the name of the Iola or Yule holiday (iuul, ioel), as the most important and longest of all. This holiday was celebrated in honor of Thor in Norway in winter, and in Denmark in honor of Odin for the blessed harvest and the speedy return of the sun. The beginning of the holiday usually occurred at midnight on January 4 and lasted for three whole weeks,” wrote M. Zabylin in 1880.
Here it is worth paying close attention to two mythological images - Odin and Thor. Odin is the supreme god of Scandinavian mythology, originally representing spiritual power, wisdom and sacred knowledge. He is the ruler of the heavenly kingdom of the dead, who sacrificed himself and, pierced by his own spear, hung on the world tree for nine days, after which he drank the sacred honey of poetry and received runes - carriers of higher knowledge and wisdom. It was thanks to such a sacrifice that Odin - Wodan united with the world tree and became a mediator between gods and people, between ancestors and descendants. He is surprisingly close to the Aryan Varuna, also the ruler of the cosmic ocean (i.e., the heavenly kingdom of the dead), all earthly waters, the king of law and the keeper of sacred knowledge. Varuna is associated with a tree, the crown of which he “holds in bottomless space” and “whose roots are upward, and whose branches look downward.” Here it makes sense to recall the Russian conspiracy, where on the “sea-ocean, on the island of Buyan there is an oak tree - a carcolist, with its branches down, its roots up”, despite the fact that in the Northern Russian dialects “buy, buyevo, buevishche” - graveyard, cemetery, “that light".
The Scandinavian god Thor “was originally thought of as the god of the sky... There are clear traces of Thor's connection with the cult of the oak...”, indicating his original connection with the world tree (4). Thus, the Scandinavian holidays, which lasted three weeks, were dedicated to deities associated with the world of the dead (ancestors), “that light” and the world tree.
But East Slavic Christmastide is also associated with the cult of the dead, with the world who have passed on to the “other world.” It was on these days that the “Holy Ones” returned to the world of the living - the dead, whose souls, during Christmastide, inhabited the bodies of their descendants - the mummers. Judging by the Northern Russian material, the most well-born and noble, those whose families were the oldest in a given community, village, were dressed up (at least in ancient times). This is evidenced by one of the Vologda dialect names for mummers - “kulesa”. But in the same dialects, “kulynya”, “kulina” means noble, rich, well-born. It is worth noting that the Sanskrit kula - family, clan, noble family, kula - ja - belonging to a noble family, kulina - high-born, noble.
It is well known that in the popular belief, the dead do not have an ordinary earthly body (“Navi have no appearance”), therefore they can come to this world only by borrowing flesh from someone living. L.N. Vinogradova emphasizes that mummers and beggars are those ritually significant people through whose mediation one can contact the world of the dead. It is worth noting here that the Russian word beggar correlates with the ancient Indian nistyas, which means “stranger”, “not from here”, and is generally similar to the concept of “mummer”. L.N. Vinogradova believes that: “Apparently, one can share the opinion of a number of experts that there are grounds (including linguistic evidence) to assume that beggars (and mummers) were perceived as substitutes for the dead, and their generous gifting - like an echo of funeral sacrifices.”
This perception of mummers has survived almost to this day. According to data obtained by folklore and ethnographic expeditions led by A.M. Mekhnetsov in the 80s - 90s of the 20th century, informants remember such obligatory characters of Yule dressing as “ancestors” (elders, deceased), “nonhumans”, “strangers” (beggars, beggars), “tall old women”. In order to ensure that the soul of a living person, who gave his body to the “ancestor” during Christmas time, would not remain forever in the “other world,” the mummers categorically forbade calling themselves by name and recognizing themselves. For violating this prohibition, the offender was “beaten to death,” since it was believed that the soul of the named person might not return to his body, which was occupied during Christmas time by one of his ancestors. This situation could bring untold disasters to the community, since on Christmastide everyone lived according to the laws of the “inverted world” - the world of their ancestors. This is precisely what is evidenced by the memories of old men and women from different regions of the Pskov region (80s - 90s of the 20th century), who noted that the mummers were called “grandfathers”, that they walked silently or “howled like a dog”, bowed to the ground, that their faces were smeared with soot, that they were not funny, but aroused respect and fear, that they were expected in every house and were preparing for this meeting. In the Russian folk tradition, the mummers at Epiphany (when, as a rule, the most severe frosts crackled), after the blessing of the water, they necessarily swam in the ice hole, returning to “that world” the soul of the ancestor to whom they “lent” their body for the time of Christmastide. It was necessary to do this, since since ancient Vedic times it was believed that the shortest path of the soul to heaven, to the abode of the gods and ancestors, was immersion in river or sea waters, which ultimately flow into the River of Eternity - the Milky Way.
M. Zabylin noted that in Tikhvin for Christmastide “a large boat was equipped, which was placed on several sleighs and driven around the city by several horses.” There were mummers sitting on the horses pulling the boat, and in the boat itself. Even in 1996, in the village of Zhuravlev Konets, Gdovsky district, Pskov region, folklorists were told that those who dressed up for Christmastide had to douse themselves on Christmas with three buckets of well water, that is, water born and flowing underground.
The inhabitants of the “other world”, having visited their descendants and rewarded or punished them, always returned to their world. And the living did everything to ensure that under no circumstances did not a single dead soul remain in our world.
Probably, the explanation for this entire complex of beliefs and the ritual actions corresponding to them must be sought somewhere in the depths of thousands of years, when they were just emerging. And in such a search it is impossible to ignore the most archaic Indo-European mythological and poetic texts, concentrated in the Rigveda, Mahabharata and Avesta. Thus, in chapter 304 of “Moksha-dharma” (one of the books of the Mahabharata), King Yudhishthira asks his mentor Bhishma:
“What is called imperishable, from which there is no return,
And what is called transitory, from where do they return again?”
He says to the mortally wounded Bhishma:
“You have a few days left to live while the creator of light heads south.
And when the lord turns to the north, you will follow the highest path,
And when you go towards bliss, from whom should we receive teaching?”
The translator and commentator of the Mahabharata, Academician B.L. Smirnov, in connection with the above text, wrote: “The time of the sun's movement to the south is considered the dark half of the year; the deceased at this time is subject to return. The movement of the sun to the north (from winter to summer solstice) with the light half; the deceased does not return at this time. Bhishma, by force of will, delayed his death until the beginning of the bright half of the year.” That is, projecting this situation onto the East Slavic (Russian) tradition, we could say that Bhishma was waiting for Christmastide, which begins with the beginning of the bright half of the year or the “day of the gods.”
The fact is that in the Vedic tradition the time of the living, the dead and the gods was different: The day of the ancestors is a month, where 14 days are day and 14 days are night; The day of the gods is a year where day is the light half or the movement of the sun to the north (from December 22 to June 22), and night is the dark half or the movement of the sun to the south (from June 22 to December 22). During Christmas time, ancestors who have found eternal life and bliss in the world of the gods can come on their day, (or even on their day, i.e. 14 or 28 days) to their descendants to give them fertility, happiness, health, or to punish them them for their offenses. But the complete return of deified ancestors to this life, their reincarnation into living people is absolutely impossible, for they forever belong to another world.
The sending of the souls of the dead on the “day of the gods” to the “other world” after Christmastide occurs according to the principle formulated in the Mahabharata, where the goddess Ganga says: “Blessed is he who ends his life here, in the waves - he gains immortality and lives in the abode of the gods "
In unison with these words are the lines of memorial poems that have survived in Russia to this day:
Like walking on a sea, a blue sea, Paradise for the soul, a bright paradise.
Unlike winter Christmastide, where people’s farewells to deified ancestors who “looked” into our world “for a day” or “for a day,” but no more, were the logical conclusion of the ritual, during the summer solstice, on Kupala, when the luminary turned south and the “night of the gods” began, the souls of the dead sought to be returned back to earth for their reincarnation into living people - newborn children.
The Kupalo holiday was preceded by Dew Day. M. Zabylin noted that the night before June 24, that is, the day of St. John the Baptist (or Kupala) “was called Dew, which was celebrated by almost all northern peoples.” He writes: “To this day, in Vilna on June 24, in the evening, people gather in the forest to drink, eat and have fun, what they call - going to the dew.” And he continues further: “Perhaps the very holiday of Dew is named because the ancients believed that rivers are children of the sea, born from the evaporation of the sea, which is dew.”
47 years after M. Zabylin, in 1927, D.K. Zelenin writes about the same holiday in his “East Slavic Ethnography”: “On this night, dew has wonderful healing powers; They bathe in it to maintain health and beauty, they feed cows with it so that they give a lot of milk.”
It probably makes sense here to recall the words of the Russian commentator of the 12th - 13th centuries. to the Christian teaching “On the inspiration of the spirit into a person,” who, contrasting the pagan Family with the Christian Host, wrote: “You are not a Family, sitting on the heights of a mosque on the ground, and children are born in that... for everyone has a creator, God, and not Genus" . Since the word “piles” or “breasts” meant rain and dew, we can conclude that the author of the teaching convinced his contemporaries that the birth of children and the rain or dew that the god Rod throws from the sky onto the fields are in no way related to each other .
But the very appearance of such oppositions and denials confirms the fact that the belief in the close connection between the birth of children and dew among the people was extremely persistent and very ancient. And here we again turn to the Vedic tradition, which says: “The path of the ancestors leads to the moon, from where souls fall with the dew (Soma) arising from the month (Soma).”
In the view of the Vedic Aryans, the summer solstice is the “highest sacrifice,” since “the Sun, having reached the constellation Cancer, “turns back” in the circle of the zodiac, that is, it begins to move south, reaching the extreme northern position in Cancer. The summer solstice seems to be like a rest for the Sun, when tired it needs the refreshing drink of Soma, which is in the “house” of Soma (i.e. the Moon),” writes B.L. Smirnov.
The stationary Sun drinks the lunar drink and sacrifices itself, weakens and leans south, where it is reborn in Capricorn. The soul of the deceased is free like a bird, but when it enters the manifested world, it becomes “wingless”, as it turns into water (dew, rain). And “water is the manifest,” that is, the deceased, “receiving a lunar body,” can again incarnate.
The further fate of the deceased depends on the life he lived:
“The dark ones go to the underworld, the red ones (rajas) - to human (existence),
The bright ones go to the world of the gods, participating in a happy lot.
Due to their exceptional malice, they end up in the bosoms of animals,
By virtue of righteous - unrighteous (deeds) - in human,
And by the power of the righteous - into the divine (wombs).”
Thus, in the new life, some of the dead are embodied in animals. The other (who died on the “day of the gods” from December 22 to June 22) goes into the “divine womb”. “From these bodies (they) pass into water, from water into light, from light into air, (then into space). Those who, having partaken in Being, reach the Beyond do not return from space.” And finally, the third (those who died on the “night of the gods” from June 22 to December 22) return to our world as newborn children. But in order for them to regain human form, they had to be conceived in a “human womb.” And this process began precisely on June 22, with the “great sacrifice of the Sun,” when our luminary — the “Great Ancestor” — began its mortal journey into winter, where on December 22 it was reborn again in Capricorn. From December 22 to June 22, it walked the path of the immortals, and from the summer solstice, from the “great sacrifice,” it showed the way to all mortals.
In the East Slavic and Baltic folk traditions, the holiday of Dew, which precedes Kupala, and the Kupala rite itself, being the beginning of marriage games, seemed to include this process of reincarnation.
The holiday of Rosa and Kupala are undoubtedly associated with dew, water of rivers and lakes. But the Kupala rite is also marked by a pronounced worship of mountains (on which bonfires were burned), trees and flowers (Kupala wreaths), fire and the sun. Regarding the etymology of the name Kupala, N.R. Guseva writes: “Turning to the Indo-Aryan languages, we encounter the following possibilities for interpreting these names: Kupala does not come from the Slavic root “kup” - (to bathe), but consists of two words - " ku", which means in Sanskrit "earth" and "pala" - "giver of gifts", "guardian" ... and in this interpretation of the name Kupala more corresponds to the essence of the Sun god... The ritual of sacred ablutions is very closely connected with the cult of the Sun: both in modern and ancient India, water is poured onto the altar with the image of the god - the Sun, and they enter the water to greet the sunrise.” This is natural, since, according to Vedic ideas: “The transitory (earth) is generated from water, and the transitory world is generated from the transitory.”
There is a legend in the Mahabharata that when the thunder god Rudra inhabited Fire, part of his seed fell on the mountain, another in the water, a third fell into the rays of the Sun, a fourth onto the ground and a fifth into the trees. The epic states that “these five should be honored as the best flowers by those who desire wealth. It is necessary to show them respect and for the sake of calming illnesses... they should be worshiped here by those who wish the best for their children.” Well, children are those who, due to their “righteous and unrighteous deeds” in a previous life, were again conceived in “human wombs” and again came to this transitory world. Worship of water and fire, which gives birth to life in all its manifestations, and the return to earth of those who must return to it - this is the meaning and content of Kupala. This is exactly how he appears to us in the description of the 16th century author. Hegumen Pamphilus: “In the evening, simple children of both sexes gather and weave crowns of poisonous potion or root for themselves and, girded with the former, light a fire; sometimes they instruct a green branch and, eating by the hand, turn around the fire, singing their songs intertwined with the Kupala; then they will jump over this fire... When the holiday itself arrives, then on that holy night not all of the city will be in turmoil, in the villages they will go wild, with tambourines and sniffles and stringed humming, splashing and dancing... That is the great fall for men and youths , the whispering of men, women and girls, the sight of immorality upon them, and defilement of the wives of men and corruption of virgins.”
To summarize, we can say that, apparently, the East Slavic calendar rituals, marking such important moments of the year as the winter and summer solstice, were based on the same ideological principles, the same mythologies that are recorded in the Vedic texts (Rigveda, Mahabharata, Avesta ):
1. Everyone who dies on the “day of the gods” gains eternal life in the world of the gods and is not subject to reincarnation in the world of people. Christmastide is dedicated to them, a time when they can visit their descendants.
2. Everyone who died on the “night of the gods” must return to the world of living people through dew, rain or snow in order to be reincarnated as a newborn child. The holiday of Dew, which precedes Kupala, and the Kupala rite itself, being the beginning of the marriage period, seemed to include this process of reincarnation.
3. Since souls in the next world initially had a light or fiery embodiment, then both during winter Christmastide and on Kupala, living people joined the world of the dead through all three hypostases of fire: fire itself (the sun, a fire), water (carrying in itself potentially fire), wood (by friction of which a ritual “living fire” is obtained by rubbing against each other).
Ancient calendar ideas about dividing the year into two halves (divine day and divine night) go back to that distant historical period when the ancestors of the Indo-Europeans, in particular the Indo-Iranians and Slavs, lived in the Subpolar region, in the north of Eastern Europe.
The fact of such a stay is proven by the texts of the Rigveda, Mahabharata and Avesta, where colorful and detailed descriptions of the natural realities of these high northern latitudes are given. The outstanding Indian researcher B. G. Tilak wrote in his work “The Arctic Homeland in the Vedas,” published in 1903: “The Aryans were not autochthonous either in Europe or in Central Asia - their original region lay somewhere near the North Pole in the Paleolithic era. And they migrated from there to Asia and Europe not under the influence of an “irresistible impulse,” but because unfavorable changes occurred in the climate of this region.” He emphasizes: “The assertion that the day and night of the gods last 6 months is extremely widespread in ancient Indian literature... myths also point to the North Pole as the original land of other peoples, except the Aryans, and it cannot be argued that only the Aryans came from the north. On the contrary, there is reason to believe that the five races of people (pancha janah), often mentioned in the Rig Veda, could be those who lived alongside the Aryans in a common homeland.”