#ashvamedha

Yeah (I was actually thinking this while writing the post, but I ended up not mentioning it). He could be recording the Celt’s own perception of the ritual’s meaning, or he could just be telling us what he thinks of it—there’s no indication either way. The only other way of getting a deeper understanding of the ritual’s meaning would be to extrapolate what the Ashvamedha meant in the Vedic religion[1], and that’s not wholly reliable because there’s the possibility that the Vedic religion has innovated in at least some respects. What I’ve read about the Ashvamedha suggests that the bestiality part of it* was perceived as degrading by its participants. Though I haven’t read any detailed descriptions of the Ashvamedha, just the Wikipedia page and brief remarks about it in IE linguistics textbooks.

[1] Maybe the October Horse can also be used as a comparandum, but it has less in common with the Ashvamedha and the Irish ritual (it was just a horse sacrifice, had no bestiality element and doesn’t seem to have had the function of asserting kingship from my cursory reading of the Wikipedia article on it).

It’s awesome! I mean, it’s kinda gross too, but…

And it’s especially cool that it seems to be reconstructable to the Proto-Indo-European religion. I’m still a little skeptical that it can be, although I find it more likely after recently reading about the Irish ceremony recorded by Geraldus Cambrensis:

There is in a northern and remote part of Ulster, among the Kenelcunil, a certain tribe which is wont to install a king over itself by an excessively savage and abominable ritual. In the presence of all the people of this land in one place, a white mare is brought into their midst. Thereupon he who is to be elevated, not to a prince but to a beast, not to a king but to an outlaw, steps forward in beastly fashion and exhibits his bestiality. Right thereafter the mare is killed and boiled piecemeal in water, and in the same water a bath is prepared for him. He gets into the bath and eats of the flesh that is brought to him, with his people standing around and sharing it with him. He also imbibes the broth in which he is bathed, not from any vessel, nor with his hand, but only with his mouth. When this is done right according to such unrighteous ritual, his rule and sovereignty are consecrated.[4]

As far as I can tell the only things this has in common with the Ashvamedha are that (a) a horse is sacrificed, (b) the sacrifice is carried out by the order of the monarch, and (c) the monarch, or the monarch’s consort, has to “exhibit [their] bestiality” (although in the Ashvamedha it’s after the horse’s death, and the queen could probably get away with just imitating the act). Neither (a) nor (b) seem like particularly unique features, and I have no idea about (c) (after all, cultures do all kinds of weird stuff—for all I know, ritual copulation with animals is cross-culturally common). But the combination of all three seems fairly convincing. And of course (c) might also be indirectly attested in the Hittite law code which makes a special exception for sex with horses in its laws against bestiality. (Although I should note that it doesn’t say it’s A-OK—it says it’s not punishable by death, unlike sex with cows, sheep, pigs or dogs[1], but it still says people who’ve had sex with horses should probably avoid approaching the king or trying to become a priest.)

One thing I find especially interesting about the Ashvamedha (perhaps we should calque the name into PIE as *eḱumeydʰos[2]) is the “status reversal” aspect of it. Apparently the chief queen in the Vedic ritual (the one who was supposed to copulate with the horse) was supposed to ritually plead for pity from the other queens, and the other queens were supposed to utter ritual obscenities at her during the act (so I’m guessing that pity was not granted). Similarly Geraldus talks about how the king was to be “to be elevated, not to a prince but to a beast, not to a king but to an outlaw”. I wonder if the Proto-Indo-Europeans did think of the sexual aspect of the ritual as shameful (as the Hittites evidently did, even if they didn’t punish people for it) and it was meant as a kind of ritual humiliation—maybe as a kind of King Canute-and-the-wave-style counterbalance to the general meaning of the ritual which is all about, “hey, look at me, I’m an almighty king who can conquer the world.”

[1] Unless the animal “leaps on [its victim] (in sexual excitement)”.