eagle is the card that opens the tarot game, the original one, of course). Garuda himself is a card of myth as is Noel’s raven Gavran.
What about man? Man as an individual, individual meaning indivisible. As Garuda is not a part of the flock, so is the man, the individual, not a part of the crowd, he is an independent atom. The word atom means in Greek indivisible. (When the atom was discovered and named it was believed to be indivisible, now we know it is not.)
Till now I have not encountered a proper name Atom, but there are Toms, and the word tom means divisible. The proof is apostle Thomas, characterized in the Gospel in two ways: as a twin or a doubter.
There is one last word I want to mention that reminds me of the word Garuda. This word is ‘pregnant’. The Sanskrit word for pregnant is bharata (Slovenian word breja). Bharata is a part of the word Mahabharata, (poem). I hear the word Garuda in the word harata. Pregnant – Garuda, eagle. It is often told to small children in Slovenia that babies are brought by storks. I must admit that I was unable to find etymological connection between the two words, Garuda – stork, although both birds fulfil similar tasks. Storks safely bring babies to their parents, Garuda is protecting babies from murderers. (Gilgamesh as well as Zeus were saved by the eagle).
GLAGOLITIC ALPHABET
Until the arrival of Cyril and Methodius the Slavs didn’t have their, at that time still common language, recorded in a written form. (Cyril and Methodius were the 9th-century Byzantine Greek brothers born in Thessalonica, Macedonia, in the Byzantine Empire. They were the principal Christian missionaries among the Slavic peoples of the Great Moravia and Pannonia, introducing Orthodox Christianity and writing to the hitherto illiterate, pagan Slav migrants into parts of Macedonia and elsewhere in the Balkans. Through their work they influenced the cultural development of all Slavs, for which they received the title "Apostles to the Slavs". They are credited with devising the Glagolitic alphabet, the first alphabet used to transcribe Old Church Slavonic) (Wikipedia) The language spoken at that time is called Old Church Slavonic language because Cyril and Methodius translated religious texts into the language of the Slavs and for the Slavic people. There were even attempts, I take them as cultural and political acts, by Cyril and Methodius to found a Slavic church beside the German and the Roman ones.
What is auctoritas (authority) of a nation if there is no real people, no real nation? With their language and writing? Each language has invented its own way to write down their thoughts in greatest detail, up to climax.
Regarding the first record of the Slavic language I establish the following: Slavic languages were able to record everything that had previously been written only in German and Latin languages. Religious texts of highest quality, works of art in fact, must have influenced thinking and ways of expressing in public life. The Slavic people had to pray either in Latin or German before the first transcription in Old Church Slavonic, despite the fact, that they had already existed as Slavic-speaking.
With the time of Cyril and Methodius things changed. People were allowed to worship God in their own language as well as use it publicly every day. If a nation can use the language of the church as its everyday language, then we can speak of the difference and unity between the cultural and political.
In my opinion Saint Cyril was writing Cyrillic. He made it on the basis of the Greek alphabet. Later, when travelling, he passed this writing on Khazars or Mongols. And I also claim that after Cyril’s death Methodius started to write his texts in Glagolitic alphabet to prevent the German clergy to read and mock the Slavic sacred texts. That was the reason why Methodius was again called to Vatican to account.
I think it wrong to believe that Glagolitic alphabet was invented by St. Cyril. It was, to my belief, Methodius who started to use it on the recommendation of the Patriarch of Aquileia after Cyril’s death.
Some claim that Cyrillic was invented by Clement and that he named it Cyrillic in the honor of St. Cyril. However, I have to express some doubt about it. Namely, if Clement had really invented Cyrillic, why didn’t he write it?
I have to add that I do not believe in the existence of Clement of Ohrid, and if he did not exist, he could not invent Cyrillic. I think that Clement of Ohrid was a copy of St. Clement, who had already had his church in Rome.
The next fact, leading me to my doubt is that Methodius appointed Gorazd alias Cacatius and not Clement for his successor, which would be more understandable.
I guess that Clement might be the legendary venerable father Clematis, who after the year 200 found with his team a cavern in Bulgaria, the prison of the disobedient seraphic Annunakis ; Clematis’ prison might be a copy of the Castle of the Holy Angels in Rome;
Once again: St. Cyril wrote Cyrillic and Methodius wrote Glagolitic alphabet. There is a difference between Cyrillic and Glagolitic alphabet. The Slavs have in their alphabet letters č, ž, š, that do not exist in other languages. Cyrillic alphabet and later bohoričica alphabet solved the problem by adding letter h to c, z, s – ch is č, zh is ž and sh is š. However, Methodius’ Glagolitic alphabet already contained letters č, ž, š, č.
After Aquileia was abolished, all Slavic churches, Russian, Bulgarian, etc. switched to Cyrillic alphabet.
In reference to the Glagolitic alphabet I must add the following: according to the venetologists Šavli and Bor, the archbishop of Milan, Ambrosias, Hieronymus’ contemporary and his good friend, kept the book of Glagolitic alphabet on the altar and in the memory of him each year on St. Ambrosias’ Day the book is brought from the archive and put on the altar.
I’m going to argue a little further, why Cyril did not use Glagolitic alphabet. Both, Cyril and Methodius saved in the city of Georgia, (Kerson) centuries – old relics of Saint Clement from being lost, and took them together with their texts to Rome. The texts must have been written in Cyril’s Cyrillic. If they had been written in Cyril’s Glagolitic nobody would have been able to read them. But they did and even blessed them.
And now back to the Old Church Slavonic language. In the year 925 its use in whichever writing was again forbidden by the Synod of Split. Methodius’ disciples, who fled to Istria, were caught and killed or sold as galley slaves. However, in the year 927 Berthold, Duke of Carinthia, the younger brother of Arnulf, Duke of Bavaria, became dux of Holy Lady, the ancient cathedral of Carantania. For a short time, this church was independent from the Salzburg church. I guess the Salzburg church wanted to obtain some indulgences for having mistreated Methodius and his disciples. Sorry to say, their remorse did not last long.
Something else bothers me: St Cyril and the Pope Nicholas died nearly simultaneously. Isn’t that weird? So: who is who albeit who did not exist at all?
- Schism of Istanbul accepted the versions of Old Church Slavonic languages as being in God's image and likeness. What happened? After the schism between Istanbul and Vatican, Istanbul acknowledged the newly arisen Slavic languages, originating from the Old Church Slavonic languages as ritual languages of national churches, while the holy texts still remained written in the Old Church Slavonic. Unlike Istanbul, Vatican hasn’t come to this realization in 500 years, hasn’t acknowledged the protestant church that raised vernaculars to the altar.
Sic! The preserved Old Church Slavonic obtained magical power by being used several hundreds of years. However, the spoken language, as the everyday vernacular, is yielding to the negligent pronunciation and even does not care losing the original meanings. That’s how Slavic vernaculars were made. Peoples are caught in geographical and social constraints. Despite that and despite the fact that some languages were mocked in the past and even forbidden by the dominant nations, Slovenian language, my native language among them, they kept on developing. The Slovenian language has been inventing improvements that can be labeled as a written or even literary language.
Unfortunately, nowadays the platitude ‘mother tongue’ is becoming an everyday burden, especially an educational burden resulting from not knowing it. Therefore, some mistakenly beli
eve that mother tongue is the language spoken by our mothers. It is not.
A special virtue of the Slovenian language is the great abundance of palindromes. Palindrome is a word that can be read from left to right as well as from right to left.
I really wonder what magic powers and cosmic secrets are hidden in palindromes. Are they a surplus of the spoken and written language? Is that the only way that separates man from animal, i.e. by eavesdropping to the word with its echo?
Who is followed by who – the word by the man or vice versa?
In conclusion I am going to string some more questions and comments:
- Both, Aquileia and Glagolitic alphabet got on the wrong side of Vatican and thus they were both expelled from the common.
- I wish Cyril’s alleged Glagolitic alphabet was found at least in Mongolia instead of Cyrillic.
- I wonder what the Slovenians would be now if Old Church Slavonic hadn’t become literary language of Cyril and Methodius and as a ritual language the basis for the Slovenian church. Cyril and Methodius stepped on German clergy’s toes, for they were conquering the terrain, colonizing it. They achieved, by the written and spoken language that the foreign clergy was unable to read and mock holy texts,