Some Aspects of The Symbolism of The Fish[1]

by

René Guénon

Source: Studies in Comparative Religion, Vol. 3, No. 1. (Winter, 1969) © World Wisdom, Inc.
www.studiesincomparativereligion.com

THE symbolism of the fish, which is to be found in numerous traditional forms, including Christianity, is extremely complex and has many aspects which need to be clearly distinguished one from another. As regards the origins of this symbol, it seems to have come from the North, and may even be Hyperborean[2]; attention has been drawn to its presence in North Germany and in Scandinavia[3], and it is probably nearer in these regions to its starting point than in Central Asia, where it was no doubt carried by the great stream which, flowing from the Primordial Tradition itself, was later to give birth to the doctrines of India and Persia. It is moreover, generally speaking, in the symbolism of the peoples of the North above all that certain aquatic animals are to be found, as for example the octopus, which is particularly wide-spread among the Scandinavians and the Celts, and is also to be found in early Greece as one of the chief motifs of Mycenaean ornamentation[4].

Another fact which bears out these considerations is that in India the manifestation in the form of the fish (Matsya-avatara) is considered as the first of all the manifestations[5] of Vishnu, the one which marks the very beginning of the present cycle, and that it is thus directly related to the starting point of the Primordial Tradition. It must not be forgotten, in this connection, that Vishnu represents the Divine Principle especially in its world-preserving aspect; this function comes very close to that of "Saviour" which is, more precisely, a particular instance of the wider function of Preserver; and it is truly as "Saviour" that Vishnu appears in some of his manifestations which correspond to moments of crisis in the history of the world[6]. Now the idea of the "Saviour" is also explicitly attached to the Christian symbolism of the fish, since when the fish stands for Christ, its Greek name Ichthus is considered as being made up of the initial letters of the words Iesous Christos Theou Uios Sôter (Jesus Christ God's Son Saviour). Nor can we take this last word simply as a matter of course because of its context in connection with Christ, for he has other emblems which allude more directly to other attributes of his and which do not formally express the function of "Saviour".

In the form of the fish, at the end of the previous Maha-Yuga, Vishnu appears to Satyavrata[7], who is to become, under the name of Vaivaswata[8], the Manu or Legislator of the present cycle. He tells him that the world is going to be destroyed by the waters, and he orders him to build the ark which is to contain the seeds of the future world; then, always in the same form, he himself guides the ark over the waters during the cataclysm; and this representation of the ark piloted by the divine fish is all the more remarkable for having its equivalent in Christian symbolism also. There is a "pontifical vestment brocaded with figures in which the remains of a Lombard bishop of the VIIIth or IXth century were enshrouded, and on which is to be seen a boat carried by a fish, image of Christ sustaining the Church[9]". Now the Ark, as well as the boat[10], has often been considered as a figure of the Church; the idea that we find expressed both in Hindu and Christian symbolism is thus one and the same.

There is yet another aspect of the Matsya-avattzra which is particularly worthy of note: after the cataclysm, that is, at the very outset of the present Maha-Yuga, he brings to mankind the Veda, that is, according to the etymological meaning of this word which is derived from vid (knowing), Sacred Knowledge in its integrality; we have here an unmistakeable allusion to the Primordial Revelation, or to the "non-human" origin of Tradition. It is said that the Veda subsists perpetually, being in itself prior to all the worlds; but it remains as it were hidden or enveloped in itself during the cosmic cataclysms which separate the different cycles, and it then has to be remanifested. The affirmation of the perpetuity of the Véda is moreover directly connected with the cosmological theory of the primordiality of sound among the sensible qualities, sound being the quality which belongs to ether, &kasha, which is itself the first of the elements[11]; and this theory is ultimately the same as what other traditions express when they speak of creation by the Word: the primordial sound is the Divine Utterance through which, according to the first chapter of Genesis, all things were made[12]. Thus it is said that the Rishis or the Sages of the first ages "heard" the Véda: Revelation, being like creation itself a work of the Word, is strictly speaking an "audition" for him who receives it; and the term that denotes it is Shruti, which means literally "that which is heard[13]".

During the cataclysm which separates this Maha-Yuga from the previous one, the Véda was concealed in a state of envelopment in the conch shell (shankha), which is one of the chief attributes of Vishnu. The conch is considered as containing the imperishable primordial sound (akshara) that is, the monosyllable Om, which is the name par excellence of the Word in its manifestation in the three worlds, while being, through another correspondence of its three elements or matras, the essence of the triple Veda[14]. Moreover these three elements when reduced to their essential geometrical forms and graphically arranged in a particular manner, form the very shape of the conch; and by a rather remarkable concordance, this is also the shape of the human ear, the organ of audition, which in order to be fitted for the perception of sound must in fact have a disposition in conformity with the nature of sound. All this is clearly connected with some of the most profound mysteries of cosmology.

Like Vishnu in India, and also in the form of a fish, the Chaldaean Oannes, whom some have expressly considered as a figure of Christ[15], likewise teaches men the primordial doctrine—a striking example of the unity that exists between what are, in appearance, the most diverse of traditions, a unity which would remain inexplicable if we did not admit their attachment to a common source. The symbolism of Oannes or of Dagon seems moreover to be not only that of the fish in general but more especially that of the dolphin; among the Greeks the dolphin was connected with the cult of Apollo[16] and had given its name to Delphi; and particularly significant is the fact that this cult was formally recognised as having come from the Hyperboreans. The relationship between Oannes and the dolphin (there is, on the contrary, no clear indication of any such relationship as regards the manifestation of Vishnu) is above all implicit in the close connection between the symbol of the dolphin and that of the “woman of the sea[17]”(the Aphrodite Anadyomene of the Greeks); it is she, under various names, such as Istar, Atergatis and Derceto who appears as the consort of Oannes or of his equivalents, that is, as representating a complementary aspect of the same principle—its Shakti, as the Hindu tradition would call her. This "Lady of the Lotus" (Istar, like Esther in Hebrew, means "lotus", and also sometimes "lily", two flowers which in symbol-ism are often interchangeable), like the Far-Eastern Kwan-yn, is also, in one of her forms, the "Goddess of the bottom of the seas".

To complete these remarks, we will also add that the figure of the Babylonian Ea, the "Lord of the Deep", represented as a being that is half goat and half fish[18], is identical with the figure of the Sign of Capricorn in the Zodiac and may well be its prototype; now it is important to remember, in this respect, that the Sign of Capricorn corresponds to the Winter solstice. The Makara, which takes the place of Capricorn in the Hindu Zodiac, is not unlike the dolphin; the symbolic opposition between the dolphin and the octopus must therefore have its roots in the opposition between two solsticial signs of Capricorn and Cancer (in India Cancer is represented by the crab), or between the Gate of Heaven and the Gate of Hell, Janua Coeli and Janua Infern[19]; and this explains also why these two same animals should be found together in certain cases, as for example beneath the tripod at Delphi, and beneath the feet of the stallions that draw the solar chariot, as marking the two extreme points reached by the sun in its yearly course. It is important not to confuse the two signs in question with another sign of the Zodiac, that of Pisces, whose symbolism is different and should be related exclusively to the symbolism of the fish in general, especially in its connection with the idea of "vital principle" and of "fertility" (above all in the spiritual sense, like "posterity" in the traditional language of the Far East); those are other aspects, which can also moreover be related to the Word, but which are none the less to be clearly distinguished from those aspects which manifest it, as we have seen, under its two attributes of "Revealer" and "Saviour".