Qhapaq thought and the guardians of life*

Javier Lajo** It's important to point out very well the differences between our andean paradigms and those of the west. The most important andean paradigm is the andean "juncture" of the circle and the square (Pachamama, or cosmic mother and Pachatata or cosmic father, respectively, both concepts acquired from the celebratory temples of the island of Amantani located in front of the peninsula of Kkap'akk Chekka of Lake Titicaca, located at 3,800 meters above sea level from which the legend tells that Manco Qhapaq and Mama Ocllo exited) through the geometric operation that gives place to what is commonly and vulgarly is known as the "chakana", described as "to find a circle and a square that both have the same perimeter ", and that gives us as a result the Cross of Tiwanaku or "Tawa Paqa", its Puquina name (see the following drawing). This is very different from what the west denominates as the quadrature of the circle", given that western science has attempted uselessly to find an impossible numerical value that would link the circle with it diameter and that would serve to "measure the circumference", while andean culture tries to find "a common element" and a value for the angle of the diameter of the circle in its relation of complementality and proportionality with the square, that is, the andean epistemological preocupations are of interconnectedness between the two figures or symbols of the two cosmic "essences" and not simply to measure quantitatively one of them (the circle) from the rectangular or straight nature of the other, because the value of PI is accomplished only when the value of the diameter is the "unity", a value that also, because PI is an infinitely incomplete (irrational) number, never gives us an "exact" value but it does give us a "precise", that is, an "approximate" value; Instead, the "angular value" of our andean geometric exercise, which is 20 degrees 43 minutes (In the following drawing, this is the angle existant between the vertical and the double line), is accomplished for every circle and square conveniently "jointed". Let's say it thus, it serves to apply TWO variable jointed "measurements" of proportion, like it is in the case of the "Tupu" or the "Papacancha" (Earls J, 1977). This angle, then, would be the fine and optimal calibration so that the axis of the earth can rotate producing the miracle of life and that this "full life" can arise in its full dimension (Sumac Kawsay). Correspondingly to this analysis, on the diagonal line of 45 degrees or 'way of the just', or Qhapaq an, there are found the famous 'Intihuatanas' or 'stones where the the sun is tied', or what is more proper: 'where the angle of incidence of the sun over the earth is tied'. This path or route that is presented as such like a great instrument of "fertility" thanks to the calibration of this veritable "hierogamy" of the sun over the earth to produce the optimal life or 'Sumac Kawsay'. Precisely, the meaning of 'chekkalluwa' is then 'diagonal' or 'line of truth' (Lira 1982. Page 63) and 'Chiqa', which in the Aymara language means 'truth' and more so in the Puquina term 'Cheka-Cheka' that means at once 'Nine' and 'True'.

These are clear traces and evidences of our science and "religion" or andean spirituality. One of the reflections that come off of our text suggest the pre-existence in the andean world of an interconnectedness of mancosmos, or pacha-runa, or what is the same: the Yanan-Tinkuy intin-pacha-runa, (or Wiracocha-Pacha-Runa in Rivara, 2000: I) reached in Inka society. It would have permitted our ancestors, among other things, to attempt to control the equilibrium of the earth's axis in its optimal angle of rotation and with it the maintenance of the 'order of the world'; given that the major, successive inclination generates a set of of climatic disorders that worsen every year. Then the line of reflexion leads us to sustain the hypothesis that with the system of Qhapaq an and in general with what we have called "joint thought" or "Qhapaq thought", and with the "instrumentalization" of this principle zeq'e of Tawantinsuyu, from human society, from its "interconnectedness" and from its "Hampi" equilibrium (Kreimer, 1999), maintaining the optimal inclination was attempted with nature, or in its defect, revert the deterioration, or rectify the angle of the axis through a "human Pachakuti". That is, a "return" of the angle of the axis of the earth to its optimal position. Amazonic legends tell that the Inka was "sacred" because he knew the secret of life..., that is why the Inkas were the guardians of life. Having arrived to this point and analyzing it in the spirituality of the Puquina people, we will make a parallel between the data collected by Federico Aguilo on the Puquina "God" "I" and the reference of Dante Alighieri in his magisterial "Divine Comedy", where Adam says that he knew that the "first name of God" was "I", given that in various alphabets of languages of traditional cultures, it represents the ninth letter of their alphabet and from which proceed among others: "Iod", "Ihave", "I Ching", "Idolo", "Illota" and others.

There exists, then, an evident identity and coincidence between this conclusion on the "angle of the terrestrial axis" and the "angle of incidence of the rays of the sun over the earth" and the proto-andean religiosity of the Puquina "God I" and of the pan-andean "God" "INTIN"***. To advance evidences, we can not overlook the information that Federico Aguilo gives in his book titled "El Idioma del Pueblo Puquina" (The Language of the Puquina People) in referring throughout his pages to "that quasi pantheistic slope of God 'I', as the panandean god of light, brilliance, reflection, etc." and the "enormous fecundity of terms that begin with 'I' in the four andean languages: quechua, aymara, puquina, and kallawaya"; and who signals how "... the print of that religiosity transmitted from generation to generation and that today still has its reflection in the public, though in a very subconscious form but no less real, because it seals the andean idiosyncracy, quechua, aymara, and puquina."

Continuing with Aguilo, he says: "The puquinas, then, in very remote times shared along with the aymara, quechua, uru, kallawaya and many other groups of the andes, that same belief that is reflected in the same gestation of the languages, the toponyms of God 'I' appear everywhere in the Andes." And the most overwhelming demonstration is that the development of our andean culture led to the I-N-K-A confederation, which had as its center the divinity "I-N-TIN"(remembering the morphological analysis of YANA-N-TIN which we realize in the book Qhapaq an the Inka Path of Wisdom) which correspondingly and according, also, to

Aguilo signifies "the centralized globality of God I". To this significance given by Aguilo, it is made necessary to correct it or expatiate briefly, helping us with the method unveiled by the understanding of YANA-N-TIN, according to the paragraphs before cited. Then, as the 'I', which is God, to which is added the suffix 'N', that is, "its complement" and finally 'TIN', as a suffix that means "inseparably together", that is: God and its complement or parity in an eternal TIN-KUY. In addition, Aguilo says that "INTIN" is: "... an effort of unification of the religious phenomenon for strategic control...", then he insists and invoces that the theme should be "reclaimed by specialists in andean linguistics until its full elucidation and exhaustive verification... For now, God 'I' is the patrimony of a religiosity at the same time puquina-kallawaya, quechua and aymara,... The germinal origin was puquina? It appears to be so...", he summarizes. But, we ask ourselves, why were the clerics so interested in scratching the linguistic roots of a non-Christian God in indigenous lands? Why so much interest of the Christian friars in the Puquina people? Rehearsing a response, we can affim that it was present among the priests of all orders that arrived to America after 1492, the millenarian idea of "returning and reconstructing" that "Terrestrial Paradise" from which Adam and Eve had been expelled and that belief impulsed especially the franciscans, dominicans, and jesuits to unravel enigmas such as the significance of God "I" of the Puquinas, but also with the mission to "extirpate the I-dols" of Inka religion--an unclear paradox but very present in the bloody mission of the "extirpating curates" in America. Finally, I wish to clarify that the causes of "world imbalance", obeys causes much more complex than the simple "management of carbon" or excessive industrialization, the pollution of the great cities, etc. Important social imbalances act as the most visible consequences of this deterioration of this principle of "living well" or super-living and its opposite of sub-existing in which occidental civilization agonizes.

* Traduccin de Chris Rubio ** Article extracted from the book by Javier Lajo, Qhapaq an, la Ruta Inka de Sabidura.Amaro Runa Ediciones. Lima, 2005. *** INTI was the andean "sun god".