Temple and Contemplation brings together for the first ... - ImagoMundi

THE IMAGO TEMPLI IN CONFRONTATION
to form a perfect circle. As we will suggest below, there may be a profound
esoteric meaning in the disappearance of the Templar churches, built in
the form of a rotunda, and in the ascendancy of the semi-rotunda of a
chancel opening onto the rectangle of a basilica. 240
2. The correspondences. As conceived by Titurel, the Temple of the Grail is
the image of the cosmic Temple. 241 There are three zones: intermediary,
lower and upper, a) The intermediary zone is formed by the twenty-two
(+ 2 = 24) and the seventy-two chancels. There are artificial trees filled
with Angels and birds; the ground is covered with a forest of flowers, lilies
and roses; the walls sparkle with the green of emeralds. The whole
rotunda has the appearance of an enchanted garden, a transfigured
Earth, an earthly Paradise, b) The lower zone is beneath the tiles which
are crystal-plated, transparent as water. In this crystal sea, fishes and
other creatures are made to move by an ingenious mechanism, c) The
upper zone corresponds to the dome covered in sapphire, which represents
the dome of heaven and its constellations. The Temple is thus the living
representation of the cosmos: sky, earth and water. As in the preceding
cases (see above, section III ff.), the Temple can be seen here as the link
between the celestial, the terrestrial and the sub-terrestrial. As such, the
Temple of the Grail is a sanctuary situated at the centre of the world, and
Montsalvat is the mountain at the centre of the world. 242
As we saw, Albrecht von Scharfenberg does not fail to refer to the
Temple of Solomon. This he does not because there is an architectural
correspondence between the two Temples—the Temple of Solomon was
not the architectural archetype of the Temple of the Grail—but because
he saw that the two Temples are the equivalents of each other. 243 The
Temple of Solomon had been built as a dwelling-place for the Shekhinah,
for the divine Presence. The Temple of Titurel was built as the dwelling-
240 Cf. Ringbom, op. cit., pp. 50 ff.
241 Ibid., p. 58.
242 Ibid., p. 247. In developing this motif, Ringbom undertakes to demonstrate the
correspondences between the Gralsburg and the architecture of the castle-temple of
Khosrow at Shiz in north-western Iran; cf. ibid., pp. 75 ff. Shiz (where the
German archaeological mission has made some very important excavations during
the last few years) is now called Takht-i Sulayman (throne or temple of Solomon).
We have already referred to the meaning of Persia (Fars, in the south-west of Iran)
as the "Solomonic kingdom". Cf. above, section I note 14, and section III in fine.
243 Ringbom, op. cit., p. 57.
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THE IMAGO TEMPLI IN CONFRONTATION
place of the Holy Grail. This may point to an aspect of the nature of the
Grail which is worth reflecting on. The Temple of the Grail is not a
building of ecclesiastical inspiration or finality. It is not a church among
the other churches of Christianity. Likewise, the Grail cycle, whether its
origin lies in the person of Titurel or in that of Joseph of Aramithea—the
first Christian bishop—appears to know nothing of the Roman hierarchy.
The Grail Temple is the realization, in the New Testament cycle, of the
Temple corresponding to the building constructed by Solomon in the Old
Testament cycle. This is why both Temples were built with the same
direct divine assistance.
This being the case, it is here appropriate to reflect on the functional
convergences between the rotunda of the Grail Temple and the building
already mentioned (see above, section VI, 6), known as the "Dome of the
Rock" (Qubbat al-sakhrah). This latter is supposed to be built on the site of
the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Solomon, and it figures on the ancient
seals of the Knights Templar. Its plan (the rotunda surrounded by an
octagon) is the prototype of certain Templar churches, and the figure of
the ideal sanctuary in the kingdom of a Christian Solomon. Yet, because
of its origin, the building also appears as the sanctuary in the kingdom of
an Islamic Solomon. The sacred rock has a function here which is homologous
to that of the Black Stone in the Temple of the Ka'bah. The building
is as it were a temple-reliquary, and the relic it preserves is this rock itself
as umbilicus Terrae, the starting-point of all Creation and the site of the
Holy of Holies. 244 The Imago Templi can be seen as the meeting-place of
the great families of the Abrahamic tradition, of all the "communities of
the Book" {Ahl al-Kitab).
This convergence should be studied with the guidance of the vision of
another temple, with reference to which the last chapter of the "New
Titurel" says that it can be compared only with the Temple of the Grail.
This miracle of architecture is the Palatine chapel in the land of the
mysterious Prester John, an "Orient" that we would seek in vain to find
on our maps, as literalist researchers have always been tempted to do. To
this "Orient", mystical land of Prester John, Titurel and Parsifal were
ultimately to transfer the Holy Grail, hidden from that time on from
mortal eyes, like the Temple itself which heralded the heavenly Jerusalem.
244 Ibid., pp. 203-206. See also my study on 'The Configuration of the Temple of the
Ka'bah', published above, pp. 235 ff.