Ouroboros

The ouroboros or uroborus (/ˌ(j)ʊərəˈbɒrəs/,

also UK: /uːˈrɒbərɒs/, [2][3] US: /-oʊs/) is an ancient symbol
[4]
depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail. Originating in
ancient Egyptian iconography, the ouroboros entered western
tradition via Greek magical tradition and was adopted as a
symbol in Gnosticism and Hermeticism and most notably in
alchemy. The term derives from Ancient Greek: οὐροβόρος,[5]
from οὐρά (oura), "tail"[6] + βορά (bora), "food",[7] from
βιβρώσκω (bibrōskō), "I eat".[8] The ouroboros is often
interpreted as a symbol for eternal cyclic renewal or a cycle of
life, death and rebirth. The skin-sloughing process of snakes
symbolizes the transmigration of souls, the snake biting its own A copy of a 1478 drawing by
tail is a fertility symbol. The tail of the snake is a phallic symbol, Theodoros Pelecanos of an
the mouth is a yonic or womb-like symbol. [9] alchemical tract[1] attributed to
Synesius

Contents
Historical representations
Ancient Egypt
Alchemy and Gnosticism
The "world serpent" in mythology
Connection to Indian thought
Modern references
Jungian psychology
Kekulé's dream
Cosmos
Armadillo girdled lizard
See also
References
Notes
Bibliography
External links

Historical representations

Ancient Egypt
The first known appearance of the ouroboros motif is in the Enigmatic Book of the Netherworld, an
ancient Egyptian funerary text in KV62, the tomb of Tutankhamun, in the 14th century BC. The text
concerns the actions of the god Ra and his union with Osiris in the underworld. The ouroboros is
depicted twice on the figure: holding their tails in their mouths, one encircling the head and upper chest,
the other surrounding the feet of a large figure, which may
represent the unified Ra-Osiris (Osiris born again as Ra). Both
serpents are manifestations of the deity Mehen, who in other
funerary texts protects Ra in his underworld journey. The whole
divine figure represents the beginning and the end of time.[10]

The ouroboros appears elsewhere in Egyptian sources, where,

like many Egyptian serpent deities, it represents the formless
disorder that surrounds the orderly world and is involved in that First known representation of the
world's periodic renewal.[11] The symbol persisted in Egypt into ouroboros on one of the shrines
enclosing the sarcophagus of
Roman times, when it frequently appeared on magical talismans,
Tutankhamun
sometimes in combination with other magical emblems.[12] The
4th-century AD Latin commentator Servius was aware of the
Egyptian use of the symbol, noting that the image of a snake biting its tail represents the cyclical nature
of the year.[13]

Alchemy and Gnosticism

The famous ouroboros drawing from the early alchemical text,
The Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra (Κλεοπάτρης χρυσοποιία),
probably originally dating to third century Alexandria but first
known in a tenth century copy, encloses the words hen to pan (ἓν
τὸ πᾶν), "the all is one". Its black and white halves may perhaps
represent a Gnostic duality of existence, analogous to the Taoist
yin and yang symbol.[14] The chrysopoeia ouroboros of Cleopatra
the Alchemist is one of the oldest images of the ouroboros to be
linked with the legendary opus of the alchemists, the
philosopher's stone.

An aim of alchemists and adepts, described as "individual self-

perfection through physical transmutation and spiritual Early alchemical ouroboros
transcendence",[15] was familiar to the alchemist and physician illustration with the words ἓν τὸ πᾶν
Sir Thomas Browne. It focused on the eternal unity of all things ("The All is One") from the work of
as well as the cycle of birth and death (from which the alchemist Cleopatra the Alchemist in MS
Marciana gr. Z. 299. (10th Century)
sought release and liberation).[16] In his A Letter to a Friend, a
medical treatise full of case-histories and witty speculations upon
the human condition, he wrote:

... that the first day should make the last, that the Tail of the Snake should return into its
Mouth precisely at that time, and they should wind up upon the day of their Nativity, is
indeed a remarkable Coincidence ...

In Gnosticism, a serpent biting its tail symbolized eternity and the soul of the world.[17] The Gnostic
Pistis Sophia (c. 400 AD) describes the ouroboros as a twelve-part dragon surrounding the world with its
tail in its mouth.[18]

A 15th-century alchemical manuscript, The Aurora Consurgens, features the ouroboros, where it is used
amongst symbols of the sun, moon, and mercury.[19]
 A highly stylized Engraving of an wyvern-type An engraving of a
ouroboros from The ouroboros by Lucas Jennis, in woman holding an
Book of Kells, an the 1625 alchemical tract De ouroboros in
illuminated Gospel Lapide Philosophico. The Michael Ranft's
Book (c. 800 AD) figure serves as a symbol for 1734 treatise on
mercury.[20] vampires.

Seal of the In John William

Theosophical Society, Waterhouse's The
founded 1875 Magic Circle (1886),
the depicted witch
wears a live snake
as an Ouroboros

The "world serpent" in mythology

In Norse mythology, the ouroboros appears as the serpent Jörmungandr, one of the three children of Loki
and Angrboda, which grew so large that it could encircle the world and grasp its tail in its teeth. In the
legends of Ragnar Lodbrok, such as Ragnarssona þáttr, the Geatish king Herraud gives a small lindworm
as a gift to his daughter Þóra Town-Hart after which it grows into a large serpent which encircles the
girl's bower and bites itself in the tail. The serpent is slain by Ragnar Lodbrok who marries Þóra. Ragnar
later has a son with another woman named Kráka and this son is born with the image of a white snake in
one eye. This snake encircled the iris and bit itself in the tail, and the son was named Sigurd Snake-in-
the-Eye.[21]

It is a common belief among indigenous people of the tropical lowlands of South America that waters at
the edge of the world-disc are encircled by a snake, often an anaconda, biting its own tail.[22]

Connection to Indian thought

In the Aitareya Brahmana, a Vedic text of the early 1st millennium BCE, the nature of the Vedic rituals is
compared to "a snake biting its own tail."[23]

Ouroboros symbolism has been used to describe the Kundalini. According to the medieval Yoga-
kundalini Upanishad, "The divine power, Kundalini, shines like the stem of a young lotus; like a snake,
coiled round upon herself she holds her tail in her mouth and lies resting half asleep as the base of the
body" (1.82).

Storl (2004) also refers to the ouroboros image in reference to the "cycle of samsara".[24]

Modern references

Jungian psychology
Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung saw the ouroboros as an archetype and the basic mandala of alchemy. Jung
also defined the relationship of the ouroboros to alchemy:[25][26]

The alchemists, who in their own way knew more about the nature of the individuation
process than we moderns do, expressed this paradox through the symbol of the Ouroboros,
the snake that eats its own tail. The Ouroboros has been said to have a meaning of infinity or
wholeness. In the age-old image of the Ouroboros lies the thought of devouring oneself and
turning oneself into a circulatory process, for it was clear to the more astute alchemists that
the prima materia of the art was man himself. The Ouroboros is a dramatic symbol for the
integration and assimilation of the opposite, i.e. of the shadow. This 'feed-back' process is at
the same time a symbol of immortality, since it is said of the Ouroboros that he slays himself
and brings himself to life, fertilizes himself and gives birth to himself. He symbolizes the
One, who proceeds from the clash of opposites, and he therefore constitutes the secret of the
prima materia which ... unquestionably stems from man's unconscious.

The Jungian psychologist Erich Neumann writes of it as a representation of the pre-ego "dawn state",
depicting the undifferentiated infancy experience of both mankind and the individual child.[27]

Kekulé's dream
The German organic chemist August Kekulé described the eureka moment when he realized the structure
of benzene, after he saw a vision of Ouroboros:[28]
 I was sitting, writing at my text-book; but the work
did not progress; my thoughts were elsewhere. I
turned my chair to the fire and dozed. Again the
atoms were gamboling before my eyes. This time the
smaller groups kept modestly in the background. My Kekulé's proposal for the structure of
mental eye, rendered more acute by the repeated benzene (1872)
visions of the kind, could now distinguish larger
structures of manifold conformation: long rows,
sometimes more closely fitted together; all twining
and twisting in snake-like motion. But look! What
was that? One of the snakes had seized hold of its
own tail, and the form whirled mockingly before my
eyes. As if by a flash of lightning I awoke; and this
time also I spent the rest of the night in working out
the consequences of the hypothesis.

Cosmos
Martin Rees used the ouraborus to illustrate the various scales of the universe, ranging from 10−20 cm
(subatomic) at the tail, up to 1025 cm (supragalactic) at the head.[29] Rees stressed "the intimate links
between the microworld and the cosmos, symbolised by the ouraborus",[30] as tail and head meet to
complete the circle.

Armadillo girdled lizard

The genus of the armadillo girdled lizard, Ouroborus cataphractus, takes its name from the animal's
defensive posture: curling into a ball and holding its own tail in its mouth.[31]

See also
Autopoiesis
Biscione
Causality
Crosier
Cyclic model
Cyclical pattern
Dragon (M. C. Escher)
Endless knot
Ensō
Eternal return (Eliade)
Eternalism (philosophy of time)
Feedback
Jishin-no-ben
Historic recurrence
Hoop snake
Infinite loop
 Moebius Strip
Recursion
Strange loop
Three hares
Tsuchinoko
AURYN
Wyvern
Valknut
The Worm Ouroboros – notable fictional appearance

References

Notes
1. The Codex Parisinus graecus 2327 in the Bibliothèque Nationale, France, referred to in
"alchemy", The Oxford Classical Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 2012,
ISBN 0199545561
2. "uroboros" ([Link] Oxford Dictionaries.
Oxford University Press. Retrieved 25 August 2018.
3. "Definition of 'ouroboros' " ([Link]
Collins English Dictionary. Retrieved 25 August 2018.
4. "Salvador Dalí: Alchimie des Philosophes | The Ouroboros" ([Link]
hfma/omeka/exhibits/show/salvador-dali--alchimie-des-ph/the-ouroboros). Academic
Commons. Willamette University.
5. Liddell & Scott (1940), οὐροβόρος ([Link]
s%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dou%29robo%2Fros)
6. Liddell & Scott (1940), οὐρά ([Link]
t%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dou)ra%2F)
7. Liddell & Scott (1940), βορά ([Link]
xt%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dbora%2F)
8. Liddell & Scott (1940), βιβρώσκω ([Link]
3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dbibrw%2Fskw)
9. Arien Mack: Humans and Other Animals,Ohio State University Press, 1999, p.359
10. Hornung, Erik. The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife. Cornell University Press, 1999.
pp. 38, 77–78
11. Hornung, Erik. Conceptions of God in Egypt: The One and the Many. Cornell University
Press, 1982. pp. 163–64.
12. Hornung 2002, p. 58.
13. Servius, note to Aeneid 5.85: "according to the Egyptians, before the invention of the
alphabet the year was symbolized by a picture, a serpent biting its own tail, because it
recurs on itself" (annus secundum Aegyptios indicabatur ante inventas litteras picto dracone
caudam suam mordente, quia in se recurrit), as cited by Danuta Shanzer, A Philosophical
and Literary Commentary on Martianus Capella's De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii Book 1
(University of California Press, 1986), p. 159.
14. Eliade, Mircea. Occultism, Witchcraft, and Cultural Fashions. Chicago and London: U of
Chicago Press, 1976. p.55; Ch.6, p. 93–113
15. [Link] BETTER LIVING
THROUGH ALCHEMY VOLUME I: ORIGINS OF ALCHEMY By Lynn Osburn© 1994-2008
([Link]
16. For illustrative specificity on how the Ourobouros sexually symbolized this unity in alchemy
and in Phibionite Gnosticism, consult: Eliade, Mircea. Occultism, Witchcraft, and Cultural
Fashions. Chicago and London: U of Chicago Press, 1976. pp. 55; 109–119. ISBN 0-226-
20391-3.
17. Origen, Contra Celsum 6.25.
18. Hornung 2002, p. 76.
19. [Link]
20. Lambsprinck: De Lapide Philosophico. E Germanico versu Latine redditus, per Nicolaum
Barnaudum Delphinatem .... Sumptibus LUCAE JENNISSI, Frankfurt 1625, p. 17 ([Link]
[Link]/books?id=_NHNKtBwYmgC&dq=De%20Lapide%20Philosophico%201625&h
l=de&pg=PA17#v=onepage&q&f=false).
21. Jurich, Marilyn (1998). Scheherazade's Sisters: Trickster Heroines and Their Stories in
World Literature ([Link]
ge&q&f=false). Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 9780313297243.
22. Roe, Peter (1986), The Cosmic Zygote, Rutgers University Press
23. Witzel, M., "The Development of the Vedic Canon and its Schools : The Social and Political
Milieu ([Link] in Witzel, Michael (ed.)
(1997), Inside the Texts, Beyond the Texts. New Approaches to the Study of the Vedas,
Harvard Oriental Series, Opera Minora vol. 2, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. p. 325
footnote 346
24. "When Shakti is united with Shiva, she is a radiant, gentle goddess; but when she is
separated from him, she turns into a terrible, destructive fury. She is the endless Ouroboros,
the dragon biting its own tail, symbolizing the cycle of samsara." Storl, Wolf-Dieter (2004).
Shiva: The Wild God of Power and Ecstasy ([Link]
z0IC&pg=PA219). Inner Traditions / Bear & Co. p. 219. ISBN 978-1-59477-780-6.
25. Carl Jung, Collected Works, Vol. 14 para. 513
26. "Jung defines ouroboros to alchemy" ([Link]
reams/). Snakes in Dreams. Retrieved 2019-12-09.
27. Neumann, Erich. (1995). The Origins and History of Consciousness. Bollington series XLII:
Princeton University Press. Originally published in German in 1949.
28. Read, John (1957). From Alchemy to Chemistry ([Link]
UOWzpMC). pp. 179–180. ISBN 9780486286907.
29. M Rees Just Six Numbers (London 1999) p. 7-8
30. M Rees Just Six Numbers (London 1999) p. 161
31. Stanley, Edward L.; Bauer, Aaron M.; Jackman, Todd R.; Branch, William R.; Mouton, P. Le
Fras N. (2011). "Between a rock and a hard polytomy: Rapid radiation in the rupicolous
girdled lizards (Squamata: Cordylidae)". Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 58 (1): 53–
70. (Ouroborus cataphractus, new combination).

Bibliography
Bayley, Harold S (1909). New Light on the Renaissance ([Link]
u/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Bayley%2C%20Harold). Kessinger. Reference pages
hosted by the University of Pennsylvania
Hornung, Erik (2002). The Secret Lore of Egypt: Its Impact on the West. Cornell University
Press.
 Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert (1940). A Greek-English Lexicon ([Link]
[Link]/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.04.0057). Oxford: Clarendon Press –
via [Link].

External links
BBC Culture - The ancient symbol that spanned millennia ([Link]
20171204-the-ancient-symbol-that-spanned-millennia)

Retrieved from "[Link]

This page was last edited on 30 January 2020, at 19:19 (UTC).

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using
this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia
Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.