Rola symboliki „środka świata” w waloryzacji przestrzeni sakralnej w ujęciu Mircei Eliadego

Abstract

It is well known that one of the deepest and most important of all human matters is religion. We can safely say that reflection on religion has always been present in human culture, but in XXth century we find a lot of research on this subject and the dynamic development of sciences of religion. Mircea Eliade (1907-1986) is very important exponent of the hermeneutical phenomenology of religion. His thought shows a specific way of reasoning. On the basis of material coming from the history, ethnography and psychology he presents many interesting treatments on the nature of religion and on the religious act, in particular on the symbolism of the center of the world and its importance in the sacred space. The term “center of the world” refers to that sacred place where all essential modes of being come together; where communication and even passage among them is possible. The center of the world is the heart of reality, where the sacrum is fully manifested. Since this center stands apart as the extraordinary place where the real is integral, it is always a sacred place, qualitatively different from mundane space. In the religious world view, every ordered and habitable area possesses such a center, a space that is sacred above all others. For this reason, the center of the world should not be portrayed in purely geometric terms or form. It is because the center of the world is defined by its special relationship to the sacred that there can be multiple centers in any cosmos or microcosm. Cultures in Mesopotamia, India, and China, for example, saw no inconsistency in recognizing a large number of sacred places, each one called “the center of the world”. Existence of a sacręd center allows for the establishment of a world system, a body of imaged realities that are related to one another: a sacred point that stands apart from the homogeneity of general space; symbolic openings from one level of reality to another; an axis mundi (tree, mountain, ladder, vine, pillar) that symbolizes the communication between cosmic regions. This cosmos constructed around a sacred center lies in opposition to the chaotic space beyond it, which has neither been ordered by the gods nor consecrated in rituals imitating the divine creative acts.