Hello, g.
If the Sacred Heart indeed appears first in the monastery of Cluny, then you should look into the history of the Cistercian order, as that was a strong base of discalked Carmelites beginning quite early on.
As for the entrance of the "fylfot" via a viking connection with India, I'm not sure a case can be made. In the Hindu and Buddhist iconography, we have the Svasti-ka, or auspicious sign. In some Buddhist prayers, they begin by chanting "Om Svasti" or "Om, auspicious." The "fylfot" does appear in petroglyphs (hällristningar) in Bohuslän in Sweden, though its entry is sometimes more stylized than the angular bent or "hook" cross that one sees in Tantric Buddhist iconography of the 9th century, and that was eventually appropriated by the National Socialists in Germany during the 1930s.
More modern appearances of the svasti-ka is with curved lines, much like the Irish Triskelion, and that form survived in the shape of raised cardemom Yule buns in parts of Västergötland up to the 20th century.
I'm thinking you have a more pervasive Indo-European form rather than a direct migration of a Buddhist symbol during the 9th century from discrete sources in the middle east or India.
Best of luck,
Tom
University of Washington
On Wed, 27 Sep 2006, grant b, sun reporter wrote:
> I just got a copy of R.I. Page's book on runes
> today, thanks to a recommendation made months ago
> responding to my first question to this list. So
> I thought I should celebrate the occasion by
> asking another one out of left field and seeing
> what new answers I could get.
>
> I'm wondering if anyone on here knows the history
> of the Sacred Heart as an icon, and if it could
> have any kind of pagan ancestry in Europe. You
> know the thing I mean, right? The anatomically
> correct heart of Jesus, wreathed in flame and
> wound in a crown of thorns? (There's also the
> Marian version, the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
> Usually less fiery, the crown isn't thorny, but
> it's pierced by a sword.)
>
> As far as I can tell after a quick look around
> Wikipedia and a few other sources, the Sacred
> Heart pops up just about fully formed in the
> 1100s based on some mystic poems written by St.
> Bernard of Cluny and a French nun named... well,
> I just forgot, but Mary something. This sudden
> appearance seems strange to me, especially since
> it coincides with, well, the odd mysticism that
> coincided with the Crusades & foundation of the
> Knights Templar. A bunch of East-West
> cross-fertilization happening there at
> sword-point, but also a kind of weird "return of
> the repressed" with sex imagery in religious
> writings (by the *other* St. Bernard, of
> Clairvaux, among others). Downright pagan, some
> of it.
>
> So, I did a little more looking, and learned a
> couple interesting things. 1. The swastika, which
> pops up all over the place, is known in India as
> the "heart of Buddha."
> 2. The swastika is also commonly seen as a
> flaming wheel (thus, fiery heart), although
> whether this is true in Indian Buddhism, I have
> no idea.
> 3. The swastika has a history in Europe, showing
> up in northern European church windows as a
> figure commonly called a "fylfot," because it
> seemed to be used as a design element to "fill"
> the "foot" of stained glass windows.
> 4. The Vikings what wound up building some of
> those churches were culturally connected to the
> Novgorod Vikings, who had attacked Constantinople
> in the 800s.
> 5. The 800s were also a period when Buddhist
> missionaries and Nestorian Christians (Indian
> religious folks) were popping up all over the
> place, like in Tang Dynasty China. And maybe in
> Constantinople.
>
> So what I'm wondering is if there's A: some kind
> of European pagan/magicky source for the image of
> the Sacred Heart -- the flaming heart of the
> divine figure, and B: if that iconography could
> possibly have traveled out of India via the
> Vikings (in the 800s), or via the Crusaders (in
> the 1100s). I'm more interested in potential
> Viking connections, but anything would do.
>
> Is there something basic I don't know but should?
> Who might know more about this stuff?
>
> Thanks,
> g
>
> -------------
> grant's words: http://www.flyingfists.org, http://china.adoptionblogs.com
>
> grant's music: http://grantimatter.com/
>
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