THE DARKER SIDE OF DAWN 



By an an da K. COOMARASWAMY 



INTRODUCTION 



Students of theology and mythology are well aware that the concept 

 of deity presents itself to us under a clouble aspect ; on the one hand 

 as gracious, on the other as awful. He evokes both love and fear. 

 He is both a light and a darkness, a revelation and a mystery. In the 

 latter and awful aspect, clouds and darkness are round about him. The 

 Light is Life, the Darkness Death. The one corresponds to our concept 

 of Good, the other to our concept of Evil, within the recognized defini- 

 tions of good as " that which all creatures desire ", and of evil as 

 " that which all creatures would avoid." A majority of religions in 

 their exoteric formulation treat these contrasted aspects in outward 

 operation as distinct and opposed forces, divine and satanic, celestial 

 and chthonic. Satan is commonly thought of as a Serpent or Dragon 

 and is often so represented, upon the stage or in art. Yet the Solar 

 hero and the Dragon, at war on the open stage, are blood brothers 

 in the green room. From the Christian point of view, the fallen Angels 

 are " fallen in grace, but not in nature " ; and from the Islamic, Iblis 

 is restored at the end of time ; in other words Satan becomes again 

 Lucifer. The same deity, Zeus for example in Greek mythology, may 

 be worshipped and represented both in anthropomorphic and in snake 

 forms. Serpent worship and its iconography, despite their outwardly 

 " primitive " appearance, have profound metaphysical foundations. 



Metaphysical religion envisages a " Supreme Identity " (in the Rg 

 Veda tad ckaiii, " That One ") in which the outwardly opposing forces 

 are one impartible principle ; the lion and the lamb lying down to- 

 gether. The contrasted powers are separated only by the very nature 

 of reason, which sees things apart as subject and object, affirmation 

 and negation, act and potentiality. Heaven and Earth. Contemplative 

 practice alike in East and West seeks to approach divinity in both 

 aspects, avoiding a one-sided vision of the Unity ; willing to know 

 Him both as being and non-being, life and death, God and Godhead. 

 The contcmplatio in caligine, for example, is directed to the dark side 

 of deity ; and corresponds to the Indian cult of Siva-Rudra. for the 



Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. 94, No. 1 



