Another form of the cross is given from the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society:[1286]
At each of the four corners is placed a quarter arc of an oviform curve, and when the four are put together they form an oval; thus the figure combines the cross with the circle round it in four parts, corresponding to the four corners of the cross. The four segments answer to the four feet of the Swastica cross and the Fylfot of Thor. The four-leaved lotus flower of Buddha, is likewise figured at the centre of this cross, the lotus being an Egyptian and Hindu type of the four quarters. The four quarter arcs, if joined together, would form an ellipse, and the ellipse is also [pg 577]figured on each arm of the cross. This ellipse therefore denotes the path of the earth.... Sir J. Y. Simpson copied the following specimen, [Symbol: Oval, with large letter “Z” inside, with horizontal crossbar] which is here presented, as the cross of the two equinoxes and the two solstices placed within the figure of the earth's path. The same ovoid or boat-shaped figure appears at times in the Hindu drawings with seven steps at each end as a form or a mode of Meru.
This is the astronomical aspect of the double glyph. There are six more aspects, however, and an attempt may be made to interpret a few of these. The subject is so vast that it would require in itself alone many volumes.
But the most curious of these Egyptian symbols of cross and circle, spoken of in the above cited work, is one which receives its full explanation and final colour from Âryan symbols of the same nature. Says the author:
The four-armed Cross is simply the cross of the four quarters, but the cross-sign is not always simple.[1287] This is a type that was developed from an identifiable beginning, which was adapted to the expression of various ideas afterwards. The most sacred cross of Egypt that was carried in the hands of the Gods, the Pharaohs, and the mummied dead, is the Ankh ☥ the sign of life, the living, an oath, the covenant.... The top of this is the hieroglyphic Ru [Symbol: Horizontal oval] set upright on the Tau-cross. The Ru is the door, gate, mouth, the place of outlet. This denotes the birthplace in the northern quarter of the heavens, from which the Sun is reborn. Hence the Ru of the Ankh-sign is the feminine type of the birthplace, representing the north. It was in the northern quarter that the Goddess of the Seven Stars, called the “Mother of the Revolutions,” gave birth to time in the earliest cycle of the year. The first sign of this primordial circle and cycle made in heaven is the earliest shape of the Ankh-cross [Symbol: Horizontal oval with tail to the right], a mere loop which contains both a circle and the cross in one image. This loop or noose is carried in front of the oldest genitrix, Typhon of the Great Bear; as her Ark, the ideograph of a period, an ending, a time, shown to mean one revolution. This, then, represents the circle made in the northern heaven by the Great Bear which constituted the earliest year of time, from which fact we infer that the loop or Ru of the North represents that quarter, the birthplace of time when figured as the Ru of the Ankh symbol. Indeed this can be proved. The noose is an Ark or Rek type of reckoning. The Ru of the Ankh-cross was continued in the Cypriote R, [Symbol: Circle with horizontal line beneath], and the Coptic Ro, [Symbol: Figure like a Rho].[1288] The Ro was carried into the Greek cross [Symbol: Large Greek Rho with letter Chi beneath it], which is formed of the Ro and Chi or R-k.... The Rek, or Ark, was the sign of all beginning (Arche) on this account, and the Ark-tie is the cross of the North, the hind part of heaven.[1289]
Now this, again, is entirely astronomical and phallic. The Paurânic version in India gives the whole matter another colour. Without [pg 578] destroying the above interpretation, it is made to reveal a portion of its mysteries with the help of the astronomical key, and thus offers a more metaphysical rendering. The Ankh-tie [Symbol: Horizontal oval with tail to the right] does not belong to Egypt alone. It exists under the name of Pâsha, a cord which the four-armed Shiva holds in the hand of his right back arm.[1290] The Mahâdeva is represented in the posture of an ascetic, as Mahâyogî, with his third eye [Symbol: Vertical oval with dot in the middle], which is “the Ru [Symbol: Horizontal oval with dot in the middle], set upright on the Tau-cross” in another form. The Pâsha is held in the hand in such a way that the first finger and hand near the thumb make the cross, or loop and crossing. Our Orientalists would have it to represent a cord to bind refractory offenders with, because, forsooth, Kâlî, Shiva's consort, has the same as an attribute!
The Pâsha has here a double significance, as also has Shiva's Trisûla and every other divine attribute. This dual significance lies in Shiva, for Rudra has certainly the same meaning as the Egyptian Ansated Cross in its cosmic and mystic meaning. In the hand of Shiva, the Pâsha becomes lingyonic. Shiva, as said before, is a name unknown to the Vedas. It is in the White Yajur Veda that Rudra appears for the first time as the Great God, Mahâdeva, whose symbol is the Lingam. In the Rig Veda he is called Rudra, the “howler,” the beneficent and the maleficent Deity at the same time, the Healer and the Destroyer. In the Vishnu Purâna, he is the God who springs from the forehead of Brahmâ, who separates into male and female, and he is the parent of the Rudras or Maruts, half of whom are brilliant and gentle, others, black and ferocious. In the Vedas, he is the Divine Ego aspiring to return to its pure, deific state, and at the same time that Divine Ego imprisoned in earthly form, whose fierce passions make of him the “roarer,” the “terrible.” This is well shown in the Brihadâranyaka Upanishad, wherein the Rudras, the progeny of Rudra, God of Fire, are called the “ten vital breaths (prâna, life), with the heart (manas), as eleventh,”[1291] whereas as Shiva, he is the destroyer of that life. Brahmâ calls him Rudra, and gives him, besides, seven other names, signifying seven forms of manifestation, and also the seven powers of nature which destroy but to recreate or regenerate.
Hence the cruciform noose, or Pâsha, in the hand of Shiva, when he [pg 579] is represented as an ascetic, the Mahâyogin, has no phallic signification, and, indeed, it requires an imagination strongly bent in this direction to find such a signification even in an astronomical symbol. As an emblem of “door, gate, mouth, the place of outlet” it signifies the “strait gate” that leads to the Kingdom of Heaven, far more than the “birthplace” in a physiological sense.
It is a cross in a circle and Crux Ansata, truly; but it is a cross on which all the human passions have to be crucified before the Yogî passes through the “strait gate,” the narrow circle that widens into an infinite one, as soon as the Inner Man has passed the threshold.
As to the mysterious seven Rishis in the constellation of the Great Bear; if Egypt made them sacred to “the oldest genitrix, Typhon,” India has connected these symbols ages ago with Time or Yuga-revolutions, and the Saptarshis are intimately connected with our present age-the dark Kali Yuga.[1292] The great Circle of Time, on the face of which, Indian fancy has represented the Porpoise, or Shishumâra, has the cross placed on it by nature in its division and localization of stars, planets and constellations. In Bhâgavata Purâna,[1293] it is said: