| Bambi's Research:
Mandrake aka Mandragoras, aka The White Dragon, and Dragons Hoard.... So, Mandrake has a connection to the Dragon. There might be a cross-cultural connection to China, where the Great Dragon/Serpent is one of the four cardinal directions in the Heavens and acts as a bridge between that which is below, on Earth, and that which is above, in the Heavens. This mirrors the "as above, so below" philosophy of the Ancient Indians that Bidev talked about being incorporated into the game of chess as secret esoteric knowledge, and is reflected to this day in our use of bi-colored chess pieces and game board...
...since that root seems to be a maker of love-medicines... This explains why men would have been so fascinated with mandrake. Things haven't changed very much - how many commercials for male erectile dysfunction medications were played during Superbowl XXXVIII... The root contains an alkaloid which, belonging to the atropine group, is a narcotic and a local anesthetic. It is of the order Solanaceae, similar to deadly nightshade. From the old tradition that they excited amorous inclinations, mandrakes were called love apples. Hence Venus is called Mandragoritis, and the Emperor Julian, in his epistles, tells Calixenes that he drank its juice nightly as a love-philtre. "Venus is called Mandragoritis"! Yippee! We found another connection to the Goddess and the game of Chaturanga - Chatrang (Mandrake) - Chess! ...Here's the Love Apple reference Candi mentioned: From the old tradition that they excited amorous inclinations, mandrakes were called love apples. Adam and Eve, and the Apple. We don't know what type of fruit it was that Eve offered to Adam because it isn't mentioned in the biblical account; but perhaps it was the fruit of the Mandrake, and that is what facilitated Eve to subsequently conceive and bear children when she and Adam were kicked out of the Pleasure Garden. Circumstantial evidence exists for this hypothesis because of the biblical account of Reuben, Leah, Rachel and the Mandrakes (1): The aphrodisiac properties of the mandrake are referred to in Genesis when Reuben, finding sweet yellow berries, each about the size of a small plum, took some of them to his mother, Leah. Rachel, Leah’s sister, seeing the fruit, said: "Give me, I pray thee, of thy son’s mandrakes". After some bartering, Leah complied with Rachel’s request... Here is another reference to an ancient tradition mentioned many times in the Bible, the anointing with oil (2): ...before drawing even the least potent of the magic roots, it was necessary to anoint the hands and face with oil, and during the process of uprooting to stand carefully to windward; hence, the mandrake, ‘Aphrodite’s plant’, demanded the employment of the greatest possible caution, and ultimately developed into the ceremony in which the dog received the inevitable death-blow from the lurking demons. Anointing with oil....could this be Nard oil?...we suspect connections between rituals involving sacred aromatics and spices and some ancient board games...and "Aphrodite's Plant", the Goddess again... Ibn Beithor, the Arab herbalist, refers to the mandrake as ‘The Devil’s Candle’, a title suggested by the plant’s glistening appearance at night. This luminosity is accounted for by the presence of numerous glow-worms at rest on the plant's ample leaves. The Moors, for the same reason, call mandrake ‘The Lamp of the Elves’. This is interesting. One of the Persian names for Mandrake is istereng; ("istaranj, astarang" -Mandrake; may refer to the luminosity of the root ). Could the ancient Persians have called the game Chatrang because the earliest game pieces, carved in the images of men and animals out of ivory, or perhaps white quartz, were luminous and glowed, just like the root of the Mandrake plant?...there may also be a shared root words between istereng/istaranj/astarang and sitranji... ...The forked root of the mandrake roughly resembles the human body, which probably accounts for its role as a magic plant, particularly with a sexual connotation. It has been used as an aphrodisiac in various cultures. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, was also the ‘lady of the mandrake’ and in some parts of Europe it was laid under the marriage bed. There was a medieval tradition that elephants consumed this plant to arouse sexual desire. Here is the Elephant connection with Chaturanga, and another connection to Aphrodite, "lady of the mandrake"... We know that in medieval times because the demand for mandrake was so great, people carved sweet bryony to look like mandrake, and these pieces were called "manikins". Perhaps there is a connection with this tradition and the ancient Egyptians' use of marionettes in some of their religious rituals - sympathetic magic... The true mandrake is native to the Near East... Oh my! It looks like Candi is going to have to go to the Near East to find Mandrake, she's not going to find it around here. I hope she isn't too disappointed when she gets back. I need to get this information to Jan. She is doing research on Mandrake and Chatrang too... But first - I need to check the rice pilaf, so it doesn't dry out...Saffron is used in pilaf, and pilaf was a favorite of the Great Khans...Ummmm.... Kublah Khan laid out the city of Beijing in the pattern of the Chessboard...The saffron colored robes of some Buddhist sects - I wonder if the Kathin Ceremony may be related to the Sanskrit for "cotton"... Genghis Khan gave the title "Dahlai Lama" to the Buddhist holy men of Tibet, which is in the Himalayas, and a species of Mandrake grows in the Himalayas....Saffron is an aphrodisiac, and it is very expensive, it is more precious than gold, in fact, it was used as a currency...I remember reading about Saffron being used by a King, he would dip his hand in saffron and place his saffron cover hand on a paper to make his signature, or seal... Dragons and the Khans....I wonder if there is a connection...Mandragoras... Mandragon...half-Man, half-Dragon...There is the White Dragon-Headed Horse, that carried the books of knowledge across the waves of the Yellow River legend of the Ch'ing Dynasty...K'ang Hsi.., sounds a lot like Xiang Qi....and then there is Fu Hsi (2852-2738 BCE), the first of the three sovereigns of China, half-Dragon and half-human, who was the legendary inventor of the Chinese script. His prewriting device, called the Eight Trigrams, was a combination of straight and broken lines, apparently taken from marks on a turtle shell. The I Ching connects the number eight and its subdivisions to divination, and the principles of divination were later reflected in the game of Chinese Chess, Xiang Qi, called "Elephant Game" or "Star Game"... |
Candi: He's fine. He seems to be
ageless.(Image right) Dioscrides being handed a mandrake uprooted by a dog,
which dies in the process.(3)