The Knights of the Round Table saw their destiny in the search for and protection of the Holy Grail. Close contemplation of the cup grants immortality, and the liquid drunk from it expiates sins… Did the Holy Grail exist? Or is it fiction? Is it a bowl? Or stone? Or some kind of relic?
The Holy Grail. Occurrence Speculations
According to medieval Celtic legends, this magical item is the cup from which Jesus Christ drank at the Last Supper. Joseph of Arimathea collected the blood of the crucified Savior in this shrine and brought it to Britain. There is another interpretation of the concept - "living stone". According to legend, he was brought to earth by angels and possessed magical powers. "Holy Grail" also refers to the baby born to Mary Magdalene from Jesus Christ. The phrase is often used to describe miraculous light, sacred fire, blessed cornucopia, and even church hymns. Also found as a designation of a cherished desire and goal.
Church sacrament or Celtic myth
Practically every nation has its own answer to the question of what the Grail is. In Egyptian writings, a hieroglyph was found that means the heart. The sign was in the form of a magical vessel. The Celts believedThe grail is a full cup of wine, mead or beer, which was brought to the king by a young girl. It was a symbol of the supreme power of the tribe. Adherents of the Christian faith believed that the Grail is the heart of Christ. According to legend, it was created from an emerald that fell from Lucifer's forehead. With the help of a magical item, the blood of Christ atoned for the sin of the fallen angel. Tradition also tells that the cup was given to Adam, but after the fall it remained in paradise. Whoever finds her there will atone for the sins of mankind. Of course, only the most worthy seeker can discover the Holy Grail.
Divine sounding
Formula of the Primal Sound - "Grail". What's this? God uttered this sound when he created the material universe. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." This sound has the power to transform matter by making changes to the basic matrix of being. Wise men from Shambhala - Bodhisattvas - brought the Grail to the world of people.
Legend says that during the Last Supper, Jesus scrawled the formula of Primal Sound on the bottom of a wooden dish. After dinner, he gave the cup to Mary Magdalene, saying the following: "This is the Magdala of My Church …". Thus, he initiated the maiden into some secret, the value of which only she understood.
Thousand years after the arrival of the Savior, Bodhisattva Agapit brought the Holy Grail to the world once again. It was given as a formula of 12 characters. In the period of the XI-XII centuries, the object was found. The people who kept it organized the Knights Templar.
Order of Knights
In the 4th century BC, the Grail became a symbol of the spiritadventures, the magic of the surrounding world, the interweaving of myths and mysticism of the teachings about Christ. Ancient Egypt during this period became the site of the creation of the Order of the Knights of the Grail. Its origin is associated with the attack of Lucifer on the castle of Montsegur, which was owned by the first king of the Grail, Titurel. For protection, the knights united in the Order and made a vow to always be on guard of a magical item. After some time, this society was located in Palestine. King Solomon, who ruled there, wore the Grail in the form of a stone in a ring. Later, the magic item was reincarnated into a bowl, the guardians of which were also the knights of the Round Table of King Arthur.
When the world became too sinful, the Order of the Grail Knights decided to move the chalice to a holy place. They went to the East, where they ended up in the country of Shambhala. This is a mysterious place with eternal spring and beating fountains of youth. Here, on Mount Montsalvat, the knights build a castle, which becomes the home of the Grail. Around the mountain, according to legend, lies the Star Ocean and the River of Time flows. Only the chosen ones, summoned by a magic item, can enter the castle.
Quest for the bowl
Who hasn't searched for the Holy Grail. Many knights traveled the world in search of him. Every era has its seekers. Even Hitler was obsessed with finding the cup, sending expeditions to all corners of the world. Why is this item needed? According to legends, whoever finds the cup will gain power over the world and gain eternal life.
At the beginning of the XIV century, during a riot in France, King Philip IV of the country began to search fornickname Handsome. The desired object was hidden in the Temple - the Parisian residence of the Knights Templar. Passing through the underground corridors of the castle, the king saw a treasury, which seemed to be worth several times more than all his property. When the uprising subsided and Philip IV left the fortress, he was haunted by thoughts of untold we alth. Realizing that it could not have arisen through accumulation or offering, the king decided that something endowed with great power helps the knights. Since then, the object of his desires was the Holy Grail. Where he was, the king knew, but how to get him? In October 1307, Philip IV sent a secret order to all the cities of France, which called for the arrest of the Templars with confiscation of property. A little later, Pope Clement V accused the order of sinfulness and forbade its further existence. The king's order was carried out without any resistance from the Templars, but the treasure was never found. The magic item disappeared without a trace.
Russia also did not remain indifferent to the search for the Grail. Agvan Lobsan Dorjiev, a representative of the 13th Dalai Lama, built a Buddhist datsan in St. Petersburg before the October Revolution. The construction was focused on the heavenly land - Shambhala.
Grail - what is it? Literary Sources
Information about a magic item is drawn from various works. Authors such as Chrétien de Troyes, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Robert de Boron made a great contribution to the formation of the legend of the Grail. The first writer at the end of the XII century in his works told about a magical place and about"Mountain of Salvation", on which stands the castle of Montsalvat. In it was hidden from the wicked people the Holy Grail. The novel "Parzival" tells about the location of the bowl on the border of Spain (the territory of Gaul). The legend of the "Fisher King" tells of the mysterious illness of the cup-bearing monarch. No healer could help the king until Parzival asked him about the location of the Grail and gave him a drink from the relic. In the book "Holy Grail" A. E. Waite talks about the connection of the holy symbol with the idea of atonement for sins and voluntary sacrifice. The shrine has often been mentioned in Christian literature. The Gospel of Nicodemus tells how the Holy Grail was part of the Last Supper.
It is difficult to say whether the ancient sources of literature can be fully trusted, since earlier the influence of the church was enormous, including writing. Some works were heavily censored or simply lost. But it is believed that those who know the real story gave it out in small portions, it remains only to collect the information together.
Spear of Longinus
Besides the Grail, there is another magical item in the world endowed with miraculous powers - the Spear of Destiny. They pierced the body of the crucified Christ. The spear is considered a symbol of the fulfillment of prophecy. It serves as proof of the physical death of the Savior and gives faith in his Resurrection.
The legends endow the Spear of Longinus with magical powers. It grants the chosen one the ability to heal wounds and restore he alth. The Keeper of the Spear can rule the whole world andstay invincible. The power disappears if the chosen one violates the established rules of behavior or parted with a magic item.
Spear Masters
For the first time the description of the shrine is found in the annals of Constantinople. Here Emperor Constantine, holding the Spear in his hands, decided to found the capital of Christianity. After the siege of Rome, the magical object passed into the possession of the invader - the Goth Alaric. Further, the Spear ended up in the hands of King Theodoric, Emperor Justinian. It is owned by the most powerful warriors, to whom the shrine will grant either prosperity and strength, or chaos and destruction.
The Carolingian dynasty held the Spear the longest. After them, the power over the subject was seized by the Saxon emperors - Barbarossa, Frederick II. After a certain period of time, the powerful house of the Habsburgs took possession of the shrine for a long time. After the battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon tried to find the Spear, but they managed to take him out of Vienna. The magic item was kept in the museum of the said city until 1938. At this time, he was very interested in Adolf Hitler, and after the country was annexed to Germany, the Spear was transferred to storage in Nuremberg. After losing the Great Patriotic War, the Fuhrer tried to hide the relic by sending it to Antarctica, but did not have time. In 1946, the shrine was returned to Vienna, where it is still located.
Church tradition
Centurion Longin, who pierced the body of the Savior, believed in Christ and went with sermons to pagan countries - to the Caucasus and Transcaucasia. It is believed that he left his Spear in the lands of ancient Armenia. According to another version, the tip of the shrine wasbrought by the Apostle Thaddeus. More than once, the peoples of the Caucasus turned to the relic for help. For example, during the reign of Emperor Alexander I, a shrine carried in procession through Georgia saved people from a cholera epidemic.
The spear is stored in the sacristy of the Etchmiadzin Monastery. Is it real? Or is it a copy? It is hard to say. Scientists studied relics located both in Armenia and Vienna, but did not come to a consensus on authenticity.
A relic in contemporary art
Grail - what is it? Where to look for it? Such questions have been repeatedly asked by the heroes of literary works, feature films and even computer games. Some of the most famous films featuring the shrine are Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Fisher King, and The Da Vinci Code. The authors in their own way saw the riddle of a magical object. For example, in The Da Vinci Code, the Grail is a descendant of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene. One in-demand writer who tried to unravel the clue to the relic was Dan Brown.
So what is the essence of the Grail?
The image of the shrine from time immemorial supports the belief of many people in the existence of the relic. Holy Grail - what is it? There is still no exact answer to this question. But most often there is a variant of the cup from which they ate the blood of Christ at the Last Supper. There is another version that says that the relic is a stone that came to people in a magical way. But in one thing the ideas about the shrine are similar - the message of the Graillies in his ability to bestow Salvation. In this regard, another variant of the solution is possible - this is a certain state of the human soul, in which reunion with God is possible.
