PASHTUN & THE HOLY CLERIC

POEM BY: JANANI SAIB
TRANSLATION BY: ANUBIS KHAN.

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 Once there was a holy cleric in a village.
he was known for his good words & good deeds.
hundred of villagers used to listen to him.
people used to migrate across region to hear him.
When he used to talk about issues, people used to be in tears.
everyone did what the cleric said. boys, girls, young & old.
If the dispute were about land or money, it was this cleric who used to solve.
one day he was talking about hell, its fire & its snakes & scorpions.

He said:
"do good deeds & avoid evil orelse you`ll be in worst situations.
if you go on satan`s way you`ll find yourself in hellfire.
If you miss one prayer, you`ll be hit by 70 thousand lashes.
hell have dark deep pits with rivers of molten lava.
Every lash has 70 years of fire upon them & every year of it is equal to 70 earth years.
whatelse should I say about hell, just avoid hell good humans.
Every snake of hell has 70 thousand heads & in every head they have 70 thousand razor sharp teeth.
Every snake has 70 thousand stings & every sting has a sack of lethal poison.
Some of you will fall in the snake teeth & some will be food to the scorpions.
it’s for all those who are on the footsteps of evil.
But GOD also have made beautiful gardens for people with good faith.
he made heavens & beautiful places where the endless sweet fruit serves.
large green forests with relaxing mountains, shadows & hills.
A land with flowing rivers of milk & honey. channels of wine flows across the hills.
Every person with good deeds will have acres of land for themselves where the horses will get tired for running to the other end.
Trees with emeralds & diamonds, gold & silver sparkling the hills.
Every person in heaven will have 70 beautiful fairies who will be beautiful than any other woman they have seen.
Their eyes like gems bright enough to cast light, hair made like a finest silk.
They will serve the good faith people in heaven every time & they will look like a necklace of pearl lying on a green field.
Standing with glass wine in their hand fascinating every moment of the person.
& those who are more loyal to faith & do good deeds while serving lord will have countless graces of heaven upon them".


In the middle of the conversation a Pashtun stood up to ask & tell the holy muslim cleric:

"I`ll sacrifice myself for GOD & his countless blessings, may GOD bless us with eternal life of beauty in heaven, with the flowing lands of wine, milk & honey.
but tell me something, will we have Tribal feuds & vendetta in heaven? will we fight against our enemies or tribes. Will we die while fighting each other"?
Will we receive blood money, woman in disputes"?


The cleric replied: "a fool you are, you on a course of disbelief. When everyone will receive their share in heaven, there is no reason to fight. In heaven there will be
no death, no illness, no poverty, then who will have feud in his mind"?


Pashtun replied: "I don`t want heaven, go & teach people who have no honor & pride. What’s the difference between a man & a sheep if he has no debt of murder upon other.

"for generations we have fought for pride, when grandfathers tells us the stories of our ancestors.
Life is full when your heart is full of anger. When a person have hundred bullets & a loaded gun.
What a pity life that will be when there will be no life, no honor, no enemy, when there will be no blood on your hands.
This life is meaning less when there is no difference between pure or impure blood, or when there is no sword that has blood on it.
When there is no talk of powerful & honorable. When we don’t find it out which one is the strongest. Khilji or durrani.
This heaven is not for a real man, its not for a pashtun... it is for those who live on other people aid.
This heaven is either for a holy cleric or for a sufi saint or its for those who have no honor in their life.
GOD made Pashtun to fight with their enemies or their brothers.
Some people are born impure then how can they be equal to a man with honor in heaven?
Pashtun is not made for a heaven where there is no bloody feuds or where the blood of enemies wont drop."

BULL HORNS.

When a person travels deep into the Pashtun rural areas he would find large homes with one main entrance & that entrance would have either one or two bull horns or a complete goat skull with horns guarding the entrance. The myth about it varies from places to places but mostly revolves around the ancient pagan roots of mithra, mazdean(zoroastrian) beliefs. The bull has been exalted t
throughout the ancient world for its strength and vigor.
The slaying of the bull represented the victory of man's spiritual nature over his animalistic nature, parallel to the symbolic images of Marduk slaying Tiamut, Gilgamesh killing Humbaba & Michael subduing Satan.
Pashtuns myths carry that a bull represents domination, power, wealth & sacrifice & its horns if mounted at the entrance of a room or the main gate is used to guard the home, showing the force & strength of the family related to bull slaying. It also cast out any evil intentions while it protects the family within the home.

The closest myths to the bull horns mounted on the gates can be one of these according to my knowledge & research.

• The altar in front of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem was adorned with bull horns believed to be endowed with magical powers. The bull was also one of the four tetra-morphs, the symbols later associated with the four gospels. It has also been related to the Golden calf where the bani-Israel mounted an imaginary god in the form of a cow & praised it as the image of their idol. When Moses came down from the mount Sinai, he saw the golden calf. He was so raged that he threw away the 10 commandments & ordered to kill the Israelite who took part in making the golden calf from gold. When the calf was melted, only the horns of it remained which later were taken as a sign to remove any idolatry images that be depicted as god.

• The Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh depicts the killing of the bull of heaven by Gilgamesh as an act of defiance of the gods. From the earliest times, the bull was lunar in Mesopotamia (its horns representing the crescent moon). The Bull of Heaven is the constellation we call Taurus. He is controlled by the sky god Anu. After Gilgamesh upsets the goddess Ishtar, she convinces her father Anu to send the Bull of Heaven to earth to destroy the crops and kill people. However, Gilgamesh and Enkidu kill the Bull of Heaven. The gods according to the sumerian myths got angry that the Bull of Heaven has been killed & as punishment for killing the bull Enkidu falls ill and dies. Thus reviving the mighty bull to be at help again of the heavens & be the protector of those who serves the gods. No wonder the word gilgamesh resembles the pashto word Gaamesh (the black cow).

• Mithra a Zoroastrian divinity (yazata) of covenant and oath. In addition to being the divinity of contracts, Mithra is also a judicial figure, an all-seeing protector of Truth, , contract, war and the guardian of cattle, the harvest and of The Waters. Mithra was given the command by the raven, messenger of the sun, to slay the bull. Mithras seized it by the horns and decapitated it to show his victory. As the bull died, the world came into being and time was born. From the body of the slain beast sprang forth all the herbs and plants that cover the earth. From the spinal cord of the animal sprang wheat to produce bread, and from the blood came the vine to produce wine. The shedding of the sacrificial blood brought great blessings to the world. The term Mithra is from the Avestan language. In Middle Iranian languages Mithra became Lmar in southern Pashto or meher in waziri pashto.
Mithras killed a bull as Offering. The Yezidis do the same in autumn. They offer it for mankind and for the generation of a harmonious world, and for the original New Year’s feast. The bull earlier symbolized the autumn, and a rainy, fruitful green year was expected to follow its slaughter.

• Gate keeper of Shiva's abode. The close association of Shiva and Nandi (the bull) explains the presence of a statue of Nandi at the gate of many temples dedicated to Shiva. In indian languages the word nandi is used as a metaphor for a person blocking the way. In Sanskrit, a bull is called "vrisha" & It is important to seek the blessings of Nandi before proceeding to worship Lord Shiva.

• The mounting of the bull horns has slowly faded away in the pashtun lands & has also died within the zoroastrian & indic religion. The bull horn mounting in modern era is only now practiced in Texas & mexico only as it has a totally different origin for it. "In 1493, Columbus brought Spanish cattle to Santa Domingo. Within 200 years their descendents were grazing the ranges of Mexico. Translating wild cattle into hard cash was an epic struggle between man, beast and the elements - from this grew the romantic legends of the Western Cowboy. In the quarter century following the Civil War, 10 million head were trailed north. The longhorns of texas have ideal characteristics - they can go incredible distances without water, rustle their own food, fend for themselves, swim rivers and survive the desert sun and winter snow. Texas designated the longhorn as the official state large mammal in 1995. It has to do with the identity of the state of Texas as a sort of culture of its own, or as a very distinct part of the greater American culture, which is likely why Texans mount these long horns in their houses. It was an official response to a part of the culture that had existed for some time.

Ancient Rituals

Peoples of Central Asia have used fire in their rituals. From its shamanic origins to Vedic tradition and Buddhist Tantra, fire has been used to offer, to make sacrifice, to please the Gods, to invoke unseen forces and to identify and unite with beneficial deities. The fire rituals of Vahagn (armenian fire god) & Atar (fire, son of Ahura mazda) can have hints to my discussion but they are mostly d
edicated to temples so I`ll skip those.

"Safar". The second month of the hijri calender. It is said that it is in this month when the demons & evil spirit lurks the lands & spreads bad omen. The Prophet got severely ill in this month. Deep within the Afghan lands the natives (Pashtuns) used to perform a ritual at the start of this month to ward off evil spirits, jinns n demons. It is said that the people would set fire in the evening on the eve of the new moon to lit up the dark night so the demons or jinns be scared or witness the fire as the sign of presence of believers. The higher & stronger the flames in the mountains, hills or plains the more will jinns stay away from these lands.

Now I just wanted to clear somethings for myself & to share the piece of knowledge. There is no such pagan/islamic arab ritual with such scenario or imagination, so the ritual must have some other background. Keeping the geographical location & ancient religions & people in mind I have to share 2 of the possible nearest pagan ritual closest to this strange & extinct ritual among us pashtuns.

There would be many fire rituals, un-noticed or not so close to the Afghan one so I`ll only write the 2 I found more close to the upper mentioned one.

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The first one would be a Jewish Ritual:-

                             The Fire of Rosh Chodesh. In ancient times, two witnesses had to confirm the appearance of the new moon. The exact day of this appearance was crucial because the new moon would determine when the month began and when that year's festivals would fall. The Mishnah reports that two witnesses would report that they had sighted the new moon to a court of judges in Jerusalem. These judges would examine the witnesses carefully to make sure their testimonies were identical, and then confirm that the new moon had indeed appeared. In order to quickly transmit this knowledge to the far-flung Jewish community, bonfires were lit on hilltops around Jerusalem. Each community that saw the fires burning would light its own bonfire. Thus the news would pass from mountain to mountain and town to town, until all the Jews knew it was Rosh Chodesh, the new moon. The other ritual is Havdalah where the people used to light a torch as part of the complete ritual. A bright torch or fire is required which symbolizes the distinction between the upper and lower worlds. The illumination of the upper world is a world of light. Shabbat, which is a gateway to the spiritual world, is also a world of light. But this ritual does not match the Pashtun way so I`ll skip that one & would continue to write on the other possible root of it.

The second would be an Euro-asian steppe ritual, most prominently an Aryan Ritual:- 

                           The Aryan rituals mainly consists of prayers to the various nature spirits. They also conducted fire-rituals to cleanse the atmosphere of all impurities and pollutants. In the fire ritual they would recite Vedic Mantras and invoke the various spirits. The reason they used fire was because fire/light is believed to be the messenger between this phenomenal world and the celestial world and fire invokes other celestial energies. So one day Bhrigu cursed Agni. A woman named Puloma was betrothed to a demon, and Bhrigu seeing she was beautiful fell in love with her and, after marrying her according to Vedic rites, secretly abducted her. But thanks to Agni's information the demon discovered the place where the young woman promised to him was hidden, and brought her back to his dwelling. Furious with Agni for helping the demon, Bhrigu cursed him saying: "Henceforth thou shalt eat of all things." Agni demanded of Bhrigu the reason for his curse since he had only told the demon the truth. He pointed out that if a man is questioned and tells a lie he is cast to hell, along with seven generations of his ancestors and seven generations of his children. Moreover, the man who fails to give information is equally guilty. And Agni went on to say: "I too can hurl curses but I respect the Brahmans and I control my anger. In truth I am the mouth of the gods and of the ancestors. When clarified butter is offered them, they receive it thanks to me, in their mouth, so how can you tell me to eat all things?" Hearing these words, Bhrigu agreed to change his curse and said: "As the sun purifies all Nature with his light and heat, so Agni shall purify everything which enters his flames." Since then the Agni (fire) is used to repel evil spirits, lies & bad omen & as an aryan cult, the agni before the nights of the dwelling demons will make sure that any demon shall not enter the domain protected by agni or be purified if any of them enters.