THE FOOTSTEPS OF GODDESS DURGA AND THE TEMPLE OF AIN DARA IN SYRIA

Ain Dara is an ancient temple site located in North Syria. It is said to be more than 3000 years old and is dated to the era of the Hittites. The Hittites were an Anatolian people and spoke an Indo-European language and in their culture one detects much Indic influence. The first archaeological evidence for the Hittites appeared in tablets found at the karum of Kanesh which is now called Kültepe. The tablets contain records of trade between Assyrian merchants and a certain "land of Hatti". In the Indic context the word karum is linked to the taxes, work-place and trade. The word haat is the equivalent of market-place. 

Alwin Kloekhorst, a Dutch linguist, Indo-Europeanist and Hittitologist states in his writings, "Some names in the tablets were neither Hattic nor Assyrian, but clearly Indo-European." In the Indic context hatti and pani both refer to trade and the market place, hence the names Hittite, Phani or Phoenicians and kani or Cannanites. Many Indic writers have traced the origin of the Land of Hatti, the Land of Punt and the antecedents of the Hittites and Phoenicians to India. One therefore also detects the remnants of the Indic culture in their architecture.

Ain Dara was built by the Hittites on a terrace known as the "Acropolis of the tell' overlooking the Afrin Valley in Syria. Sadly, most of this site was destroyed by Turkish airstrikes in January 2018. The now ruined parts of the temple included sculptures of lions and sphinxes, elaborately decorated walls with geometrical and floral patterns and other animals and mythical creatures. However, the most unique of the sculptures here includes four massive footprints engraved on the limestone floor.

The giant footprints of a goddess at the ancient
Temple of Ain Dara site at Aleppo in Syria.

If one were to take a clue from the Vedic Puranic tradition, footstep engravings often appear in many Durga temples. Durga Temples also depict the killing of the demon Maheeshasura by the goddess Durga, who rode a chariot of lions, in her chase of the demon before his death after a nine-day battle.

Maheeshasura is a Sanskrit combination word, where 'maheesa' stands for buffalo and 'asura' means demon. At the end of the battle Durga tramples Maheeshasura to death. This lore signifies the victory of good over evil and is celebrated in a nine-day festival of Navaratri-twice a year in India. Surprisingly, in Syria, a located about 60 km from Aleppo, stood the temple of Hierapolis in Manbij, where rituals similar to those of Vedic goddesses were performed. These have been recorded in the De Dia Syria, the most celebrated work of Lucian of Samosata who lived from 125-180 AD.

A basalt lion sculpture from the Ain-Dara site,
Aleppo, Syria

Ain Dara Temple, Aleppo, Syria.
This sculpture of mythical creature may well represent Maheeshasura, the buffalo-demon that Durga killed by trampling. Notice the horn on the human-faced creature with the body of a lion.

Notice the horns on the human faced animal
which indicates that this may be a sculpture
of the shape shifting Maheeshasura
Ain Dara, Aleppo, Syria

Ain Dara Temple,  Aleppo, Syria showing the placement of the
 goddess's feet. In the Vedic context, the goddess Durga's footsteps depict the trampling of the demon Maheesasura. 

In the Indian tradition, sculpture of footsteps of gods and goddesses appear commonly at ancient temples which are held in reverence and people do not generally step out on them, instead offerings are made at these footsteps. Examples include the giant footstep at the Leepakshi Temple in Andhra Pradesh.

Veerabhadra Temple, Leepakshi
Andhara Pradesh, India

At the Hierapolis temple at Manbij in Syria dedicated to the Syrian Goddess variously known as Atargatis or Hera, a ceremony that Lucian described in his 'De Dia Syria', was performed in praise of the goddess twice a year, akin to the Navratra ceremony and the Durga puja festivities in India. Additionally, Lucian describes a ceremony where the pilgrims would bring pitchers with offerings of gold coins or jewels which they donated to the priests at the temple. In return they would fill their pitchers with the sacred water at the temple lake, pour part of it on the shrine, and take the rest of it home as sacred water. This is similar to the Kalasha puja of the Navratri celebrations of India. 

The temple priests would also fill up a gold vessel with water amidst chanting and perform the same ceremony. The image of the vessel used for the ceremony survives in a coin from that era and looks like a triple kalasha, one vessel over the other.

The image of the gold vessel used for performing
the sacred water ceremony at the Temple of Hierapolis,
Manbig, Syria. The description of the ceremony at Hierapolis,
written by Lucian in his De Dia Syria is a reminder
of the Kalasha Puja of India

In her book 'Goddess Temples in Western Asia', author Max Dashu states about the ceremonies at Hierapolis, "Its water ceremonies continued, with processions carrying the image of Atargatis to her sacred lake to be immersed, while others brought ocean water to the temple.". The word 'ocean' refers to the Euphrates River which flowed about 10 km away. However, the temple stood by a lake fed by the Euphrates. The ritual described here is the Indic 'visarjana' of the Goddess Durga.

Of the temple of the Syrian Goddess at Hierapolis, now known as Manbij, the Hindu Puranic pandits have long claimed that the site was a Shakti peetha dedicated to the goddess Mahabhaga, or Sati, or Durga, all manifestations of the feminine energy, that is Shakti.  The details of this Mahabhaga temple of Syria maybe accessed in a post by clicking here.

A sculpture was excavated at another temple called the Dura Europos in Syria, where a Mesopotamian goddess is seen seated on a lion-throne with one foot placed on the shoulder of what has been described a nymph but is really a reminder of what can only be the distortion of the story of Durga slaying Maheesh-asura by trampling him with her foot. 

 An artifact of a Mesopotamian goddess with a foot
on the shoulder of a defeated demon, often identified as a nymph. Excavation from the Temple of Dura Europos of Syria indicates that the lore of Maheeshasura
may have been known in Syria.

A second artifact from Dura Europos shows the slaying, but the god here is wrongly identified as the Mittani god Mithira, a variation of the Rig-Vedic god Mitra.

The god in this artifact from Dura Europos in Syria  is often identified as the Mesopotamian god Mithira by western authors. Mithira is the same as the Rig- Vedic god Mitra, worshipped by the Mittani kings whose empire extended from Iran to Turkey.
This sculpture artifact may in reality depict goddess Durga slaying the buffalo demon, Maheesa.

Durga slaying Maheeshasura
An artifact from a temple in India.

There is some compelling evidence in the legends related to the temples of Syria written by the Syrian author Lucian that leads one to think that perhaps the Ayn Dara site belongs to a time when the lore of Maheeshasura was well known and held sacred in the Syrian-Babylonian-Mesopotamian culture. First, Mahees appears in the Anatolian and Phrygian pantheon of gods as the son of the Goddess Cybele, also known as Kubileya. Kubileya is none other than Kubhjika of the Vedic Tantric pantheon. She is another form of Durga, who in the Hindu pantheon kills Maheesa-asura -the buffalo demon.

In Ayn Dara it is said that there were sculptures of mythical animals with human faces. There is one particular which is a creature with the face of a human, horns of a buffalo and the body of a lion. These artifacts in Syria may be a representation of Maheeshasura who had taken many forms in his battle against Durga, such as a lion, an elephant and others before he is killed when he is in the disguise of a buffalo.

A human faced animal with the body of a lion at Ain Dara, Syria. It has the horns of a Buffalo, the same as Maheesaura-
the demon that Durga killed.

Citations and Bibliography:

1. Hittite Monuments - Ain Dara
2.Delphi Complete Dionysiaca of Nonnus (Illustrated) - Nonnus Nonnos of Panopolis - Google Books

3.The Ain Dara Temple and the giant footsteps of the Gods | Ancient Origins (ancient-origins.net)
4.The Syrian Goddess: Translation and Notes (sacred-texts.com)
5.Hittite Monuments - Ain Dara

6.Veerabhadra Temple Lepakshi - History, Mystery, Hanging Pillar, Architecture, Shivalinga, Footprint, Timings, Images | Vihara Darshani - Temples, Beaches, Timings, Accommodation

7. Hittites - Wikipedia

THE SANSKRIT-VEDIC-PURANIC ANALYSIS OF THE NAME GOBEKLI TEPE, TURKEY

Gobekli Tepe, Portasar and Giri Mirazen:

The name Portasar, the oldest known name of the archaeological site of Gobekli Tepe in Turkey, loosely translates from Armenian as 'the Navel Mountain'. Right away we know that the site is a replication of the cosmic mountain- Mt. Meru for it is described both as the axis of the earth and the navel of the earth in the Rig Veda.

The description of Mt. Meru in the Vedas and Puranas is extremely complex. Mt. Meru is regarded as the centre of the physical, metaphysical and spiritual universe. Its presence is multidimensional. It is a cosmic mountain which holds together the foundation of the entire universe. It is the meru or the axis of the earth. It is also the nabhi (नाभि) or the navel of the earth. It is the centre  from where the lotus of life re-emerges after each dissolution. In the human body, on the meru or the spine, rest the three nadi-s or pulsations, namely the ida or feminine energy, the pingala or the masculine energy, and the sushmna, the spiritual pulsation that connects us with the cosmic world.

The confirmation that Gobekli Tepe is connected to Meru comes from one of its ancient Kurdish name - Giri Mirazen. This Kurdish name is ultimately derived from the Rigvedic name Merugiri, 'giri' is Sanskrit for mountain, 'Mira' is a distortion of Meru, mist likely having travelled into the Yazidi culture via Zoroastrianism and the Avestan language of Persia.

The Turkish name Gobekli Tepe is also in part Sanskrit. In Sanskrit, the root word for worship, asceticism and austerity is tap (तप्). The ascetics of India were known as 'tapasvi-s'. In Turkish the word for worship is 'tapinma', for temple it is 'tapinak' and for mountain 'tepe,  which is etymologically related to the Sanskrit 'tap' indicating 'sacredness'. The Turkish word 'tepe' meaning mound appears in its most familiar form as stupa, derived from Sanskrit 'stuup' (स्तूप्) also meaning mound.

Gobekli Tepe, what the archaeologists tell us:

The focus of mainstream researchers studying this site dated to roughly 11000 BCE, has been on figuring out how a hunter-gatherer society could have built this massive structure without the knowledge of the position of the constellations of stars in the sky. The quality of architecture, and the precisely arranged rocky megalithic T-shaped andromorphic and zoomorphic slabs, placed in several circular enclosures aligned with various constellations, tell an entirely and an amazingly different story about this site which was originally described as an ancient burial place. 

What has emerged now after many studies is that even if the civilizational level during the Gobekli Tepe times was that of hunter-gatherers, the culture was very advanced or at least was exposed by some means to a very advanced level of knowledge and skills.

The stone slabs at the site known as Giri Mirazen, 
(more accurately Giri Meru!)  in Turkey
 popularly known as Gobekli Tepe represent
the position of star Constellations at the
time of cataclysmic earth events.

What Gobekli Tepe also tells us is that how and when the humans make the transition from a society of nomadic hunter-gatherers to a settled agricultural society is unconnected to when the human society acquires an advance level of knowledge. This is the reverse of what was assumed so far, that is, only when the society settles down to an agricultural system, does the process of assimilation of knowledge begin.

What the Hindu texts tell us:

In the context of the above question, the knowledge hidden in the Sanskrit texts becomes relevant for there are leads and clues in these texts indicating that not only has the world seen many annihilations, but also how each time these highly intelligent societies of deep antiquity used advanced knowledge in the reconstruction of civilization.

Carl Sagan, one of the greatest astrophysicists of the 20th century, had made an observation. He said, "The Hindu religion is the only one of the world’s great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond to those of modern scientific cosmology." 

In other words, not only have civilizations on earth been destroyed and restored many times, the universe itself goes through dissolutions repeatedly. In the context of the earth, the Puranas say, each time there was a different cause of destruction, each time it was restored in a different manner. This scientific information of annihilation and revival are stored in the form of myths in the Puranas. 

We find from these myths that the evolution of civilizations is neither linear nor continuous, its level of sophistication may be  determined by the amount of knowledge that survives and retrieved by the surviving society after each cataclysm.

Gobekli Tepe, the site:

As research progresses and information emerges it has begun to appear that Gobekli Tepe is a record in stone of the various cataclysmic events that have taken place on earth, events that brought mankind to an absolute end more than once. 

The Puranas and other scriptures can throw much light on the purpose of the existence of this megalithic structure. Excavations have revealed many layers of construction at Gobekli Tepe, and it appears that each one represents one level of the birth-maintenance-dissolution cycle of the earth civilization. 

The Dashaavtaras of the Puranas:

The Dashavatara is the story of the ten avataras, the ten primary incarnations of Vishnu, the Hindu god of preservation, who restores the cosmic order as well as life on earth, after it is destroyed. Each time he takes a different form or avatara  and revives one civilization on earth. The word Dashavatara derives from daśa, meaning 'ten', and avatara roughly equivalent to 'incarnation'. 

So, at Gobekli Tepe, one may look for carvings of these various forms or avataras, including Matsya (The Fish), Kurma (The Tortoise), Varaha (The Boar), Narasimha (The Man-Lion) Vamana (The Dwarf), Parasurama (The Angry Man), Lord Rama (The Perfect Man), Lord Krishna (The Divine Statesman), Balarama (Krishna's Elder Brother), and Kalki (The Mighty Warrior). As Gobekli Tepe is excavated chances are that representations of these avataras will become visible.

Of these avataras the one that is remembered the most, is neither the first nor the last, but the second oldest incarnation, where Vishnu takes the form of a kurma or the tortoise. Perhaps that is the last time in history that the earth came close to dissolution, the rest where perhaps smaller cataclysms. 

The second avatara of Vishnu and Mt. Meru:
The Bhagvat purana says that during a fight between the asuras and the devas or gods who had become weakened due to a curse, the gods invited the asuras to help them recover the elixir of immortality from the ocean which could only be acquired by churning the ocean.

Mount Mandara, a spur of Mount Meru - the world axis, was torn out to use as a churning stick and was steadied at the bottom of the ocean by Vishnu in his incarnation as the tortoise Kurma.

This story seems to be connected with the deluge, and the churning of the ocean is perhaps a description of an engineering feat where some kind of a structure is built which funnels away and redirects the water away from inhabitations. Perhaps the Kurma represents something that can survive both in water and on land. When the churning is over, many valuable treasures are retrieved from the ocean such as the cow of plenty-Kamdhenu, the wish fulfilling tree Kalpavriksha, Vishnu's weapon - the conch, etc.   Of all of these names, the most remembered is Mt. Meru - the mountain at which place this rescue takes place.

Gibekli Tepe is a representation of Mt. Meru. That is why in folk culture, are remembered the names Portasar, the navel mountain, the Kurdish Giri Mirizem meaning Mount Mirizem, or the Mt. Meru in the Vedas.

Other representations of Vishnu's incarnations at Gobekli Tepe:
The boar carving at Gobekli can be explained by the 'Varaha' (वराह) or 'boar' incarnation of Vishnu, who in his Avatara as the boar saved the world by carrying the earth out of the ocean when Hiranyaksha, the 'golden eyed asura' attempted to destroy the earth.

The Boar carving at Gobekli Tepe

The Boar or Varaha Avatara of Vedic

Lord Vishnu when he saves the world by

carrying it out of the Ocean

In another of the slabs we see an engraving of a vulture with a round object in front of him. If this has a Vedic connection, this slab is a representation of Garuda, who according to Garuda Purana, was the king of the birds, a sworn enemy of the serpents as well as a devourer of serpents, sometimes seen carrying Vishnu and Laxmi on his back. There are many sinister representations of snakes at Gobekli Tepe, and its sister site at Karahan Tepe, perhaps indicating that one of the cataclysms was brought about by snake-like creatures, which some scholars have said actually depict the descending comets that hit the earth.

At other times Garuda the bird is likened with the sun, a representation of the path that we see sun as it travels across the sky. The Britannica says, "In the Rigveda the sun is compared to a bird in its flight across the sky, and an eagle carries the ambrosial soma plant from heaven to earth."

In the Vedas, Garuda is referred to as the wings on which one was transported to the realm of the gods. Sometimes, the word garuda which stems from Sanskrit 'gri' or 'to speak', is interpreted as a reference to mantras that transported one to the realm of the self where our consciousness is seated. It is also likened to the sun bird that carries 'soma' or 'elixir of heaven' to the earth. The round object on the slab is a representation of the sun.

The Garuda with a round object representing
Surya or sun

Says Alex Putney in his write-up 'Resonance at Gobekli Tepe, Turkey', "The highly geometric forms of the megaliths and idealized animal pictograms adorning them correspond closely to geometric language forms of the worldwide Paleo-Sanskrit culture, associated in every region of our planet with monumental piezoelectric temples dedicated to the planet Jupiter. Identified as the Divine One, the giant planet Jupiter was signified all over the world during the Paleolithic Era by the square Indra glyph, reflected in the square or rectangular format of the top portions of the megaliths at Gobekli Tepe."

Dr. B. G. Sidharth, (Director General of the B.M. Birla Science Centre, Hyderabad and also the convener and co-chairman along with two Nobel Laureates professors D.D. Osheroff and C. Cohen Tanoudji of Frontier of Fundamental Physics International Symposium) states in one of his research papers, that at Gobekli Tepe and Nevali Cori, another archaeological site in Turkey, there is archaeological evidence of what is stated in the Vedas. He says, ".... there are several pillars and structures with all the astronomical motifs that could be found in the Rig Veda and indicative of a high degree of artistry. Most importantly, the latitude of this place is the same 37 degrees North alluded to earlier. Undoubtedly both these structures represented perhaps the oldest astronomical observation Centre in history". The design of the pillars and other structures is a reflection of the cosmos at the time the structures were built. It has been suggested that the builders of Gobekli Tepe were aware of precession. The structures correspond to the Orion-Taurus-Pleiades constellations which were visible before dawn on vernal equinoxes from the direction of the T-shape pillars at the centre of each enclosure. Gobekli Tepe and two other ancient sites Karahan Tepe and Nevali Cori are all located at around 37 degrees north.

At Gobekli Tepe, Dr Siddharth adds, ".. in enclosure D there are 12 obelisks or pillars, one for each month. These pillars show the figure of a fox or wolf (Vrika)". The Vrika is a symbol of the moon. The Sanskrit Vrika (वृक्) has the meanings both of 'fox' or 'wolf' and 'moon'. To elaborate this point Dr. Sidharth quotes the Rig Vedic Hymn 1.105.18. which goes as follows:

अरुणो मा सक्र्द वर्कः पथा यन्तं ददर्श हि |

उज्जिहीते निचाय्या तष्टेव पर्ष्ट्यामयी वित्तं मे अस्य रोदसी || 

aruNo mA sakradvRkah patha yantaM dadarsha hi
uj jihIte nicAyya taSTeva prSTyAmayI vittam me asya rodasi

This verse is commonly translated as : 'A ruddy wolf beheld me once, as I was faring on my path. He, like a carpenter whose back is aching crouched and slunk away. Mark this, my woe, ye Earth and Heaven'.

The word 'vRkah' is translated as 'wolf'. But, if one were to refer to a Sanskrit dictionary, we find that the word 'vRkah' has the meaning of wolf and moon both. Sidharth clarifies further. He quotes the scholar Yaska of Nirkuta fame. Yaska had defined the property of the word 'vRkah' saying that it indicates an object whose 'light increases and decreases'. That is a property of the object moon.

The wolf carving represents the moon according to the Vedas

Sidharth splits the next two words as 'masa krita' or 'creator of months' and the meaning of the verse changes to, "Moon, the creator of the months, passes through the houses (asterisms)".

He also says that the motifs on the pillars can be understood on the basis of the symbols of Rig Vedic Astronomy in which animals were assigned as symbols to star constellations. Then there are some easily recognizable symbols found in the artefacts at Gobekli Tepe. One is the artifact of the coiled serpent. 

Coiled serpents.

Gobekli Tepe, Turkey

A stele depicting Lord Siva and
two coiled serpents, South India

At Nevali Cori, in Turkey, a sculpture of a human head, clean shaven with a Vedic shikha much like Hindu priests of antiquity and present day has lead to speculation that these sites were centres of Vedic learning. No other such sculptures have been found.

Sculpture of clean shaven human head with
Vedic shikha or ponytail
excavated at Nevali Cori, Turkey,

It is therefore very likely that 'Gobekli Tepe' was a replica of representation of the survival of the mankind. The nake Meru appears in the names such as Mt. Moriah in Jerusalem, Morriya at Aleppo in Syria etc. 

Suggested Links:

1. For a detailed discussion on the Etymology of the word 'Tepe', Click Here.
2. Was Gobekli Tepe an Observatory? Here's why! Gobekli Tepe Constellations
3. Why Study Sanskrit? Click Here
4. Gobekli Tepe and Nevali Cori - Astronomy
5.  Ancient Places in Asia: Nevali Cori
6. About Dr. B. G. Sidharth
7. Gobekli Tepe and its potential connection to the Vedic culture

8. An immense mystery older than Stonehenge - BBC Travel