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| Sunday, 11 July 2004 |
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Mystery numeral seven and liberation by Wendell W. Solomons Lucky Seven. The seven tiers of the spire of a pagoda ... Seventh Heaven. What events stand behind the significance of this number? In Sri Lanka you might simply ask: "On what day of the week does one give food to the crow?" The customary day is Saturday. Your informant may add that the offering is done early in the morning, before anyone has breakfasted. Saturday was once the seventh day, counted from moon-up on the previous evening. The rabbi in Judaism and the mulla in Islam await the same moon to start prayers. The word 'Sabbath' leads us through dictionaries to the source of the Hebrew (and Arabic) words for 'seven'. Famed Julius Caesar accomplished the shift of the seventh day to Sunday in Europe, yet in Hinduism, the main prayer rituals remain connected with the seventh planet - Saturn. This planet's name provided the name of the day in most South Asian languages as it did for English 'Saturday'. How did that naming of the seventh day for planet Saturn happen? In creating the week, the ancient world had counted seven bodies in the sky (Napoleon had tried metrification of the week to ten days in revolutionary France, but failed). Tail end For our ancestors, Saturn was a strange planet. At the time - earlier than 2,000 BC - you could rub your eyes but could not make out whether it was a single planet or double. As a result, Saturn was left for the tail end (in contrast, the first day was named for the sun and the second - for the moon; you know the sequence). The Saturnic tail of the week was considered an inauspicious time for doing one's regular work. To ward off evil influences, prayers were offered during Saturn's period in the week. Rituals once included the offering of a live sacrifice. This was not restricted to South Asia; the Jewish Sabbath of Para Adamah calls for the sacrifice of an unblemished young cow. On some Sabbaths, a goat might be abandoned in the desert as a sacrifice, and so the term "scapegoat". The tradition of liberation from the 'Evil Other' through animal sacrifice was ended among several groups of Jews by a doctrine that was to be called Christianity. The doctrine taught universality with no 'Evil Other' tribe. The Nazarene expression - Love thy neighbour as thyself - was preceded by Buddhism. Pali language virtues of 'Karuna' and 'Mettha' -caring for and living at peace with all beings - also made for going beyond the perimeter of a chosen tribe. We observe that ethical values accompanied the rise beyond tribe-based society. * * * Clearly, the modern nation-state we know today might not have evolved from tribes or clans without ethical foundation. By the same token, to tamper with social consolidation and amity is an undertaking that poses great risk. Russian nihilism Yet, in modern times, Alice Rosenbaum attempted this. The social philosopher, born in 1906, studied History at the university in Petrograd (Rasputin was in his prime during her youth). After emigration via Odessa in 1926, she assumed the name Ayn Rand and plagiarised in the USA Russian nihilism ('nothing matters') to teach that liberation is reached not by separation, say, of the Mosaic or Vedic tribe from the nation state. For her, liberation comes through bursting community to the one-man-show (more at website below). Her collaborator Milton Friedman provided the mechanism for social dissolution of nation states. His work led to removal of safeguards and the burst to 'Open Economy'. The citizen is led to wrap himself up in a magical cloak when opportunism and his hold on a lucky-seven ticket will carry him forward during the process of bursting, to enlarge his own territory. In Sri Lanka, one of the adverse effects of the rupture to the 1977-promulgated 'Open Economy' was the move by cloaked men towards liberation 'from evil influences' by scapegoating fellow citizens during Black July 1983. These citizen's homes were sacrificed in fire at cost to all, on grounds that Tamil is their ancestral language. In the ruptured society, a movement is now underway to scapegoat fellow citizens on the basis of their adherence to Christianity. Churches are being broken to trigger the syndrome of warding off evil. One specialist band of church demolishers was captured by the police and the release of the name of the gang's financier would be helpful to the country. The fractured society must not be diverted longer from return to the peace that was subverted through Alice Rosenbaum's attempt at social engineering globally by the worship of 'Me Only' wrapped in a magical cloak. More at www.geocities.com/worldcityessays/ Author invites responses at [email protected] |
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