Many news about prehistoric founds
and their possible meaning reached the world in the last decades. One of
them, found in South Germany, puts scientist around the world
in amazement. The centerpiece is the “lion man” (narsimha), an idol that
is made from the tusk of a mammoth in the form of a human body with a
lion head. Amazingly it is dated back 32,000 years from now.
This
discovery brought a lot of attention in the archaeological circles in
Europe. In Excavations around 1930-35 at the Lonetal area near Ulm,
German scientist already found an immense cave system with lots of
prehistoric artifacts in it.
First,
only representations of birds, horses, turtles and even single lions
where found but not a morphological combination of men and animal.
Naturally the “lion man” (narsimha) was quite outstanding and unique. It
became also clear during the later examinations that the “lion-men” was
used for ritual purposes, unlike the other items which seemed to have
accompanied the dead and so on.
The
Idol was found exactly at the place in the cave where day and night
meet, about 20 meters away from the entrance and buried 1,20 meter deep
under the ground. Many parts of the figure were broken and where found a
little away in this area. Therefore it took some time to finish the
work of completing and reconstructing the figure and to see it as a
whole.
From the viewpoint of
Vedic culture of ancient India, Lord Vishnu appeared in a divine human
form with a lion face to protect his devotee and to stop religiousness. A
description of a standing idol form of this lord is found in the agama
silpa shastra and is called “kevala narasimha”. In India still many
ancient temples exist, where deities of Sri Narasimha Bhagavan are
worshiped, often at special locations like on high mountain peaks or in
caves.
Many ancient, highly
developed cultures had some kind of idols or pictures of lions with a
human face or torso. A purely ritualistic Relic, like for example the
Sphinx of gizeh or the Egyptian goddess of war sekhmetm, with a lion
head, or Mithra, the Sun god of Persia, with a lion face, the Assyrian
Gate Guardians of Babylon or the Etruscan lion with wings at the
entrance of the Temple mountain at Troy are well known examples for
this.
An
now this amazing discovery in Lonetal in a deep cave which is directed
to north east towards the little river lone. Extraordinary is also the
exact position of the found of the lion-man (narsimha). It immediately
reminded me of the ancient story from the Puranas, known to all devotees
of LordVishnu, where Hiranyakashipu, the great demon, achieved nearly
immortality by the blessings of Brahma. This demon asked for the boon
that he could not be killed by a beast or man, nor in the sky or on
earth, not inside or outside a house, not in the day or in the night,
not with weapons or by hand and so on. Lord Vishnu then appeared out of a
column to kill this demon. But to fulfill the boon Brahma gave, he
appeared at dusk and killed him on the doorsteps of his palace with his
sharp nails.
It
is off course difficult or maybe impossible to finally judge if this
idol (narsimha) was a part of a global Vedic civilization but
nonetheless our visit of the exhibition, where one can see the figure in
a cave like hall, and our later trip to the original place of discovery
where very breathtaking and mystical and made us meditate deeply about
our predecessors and ancient times long ago where god was present
directly on earth, or later in his idol form in many temples all around
the world.
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