Andean mythology: portal of Aramu Muru and the golden solar disk of Coricancha
A few kilometers from the small city of Juli, near the great Lake Titicaca, in Peru, there is a very strange place: it is the so-called Aramu Muru portal, also called Hayumarca, city of spirits, a large perfectly polished rock that was sculpted in ancient times on the lateral parts until it assumed the shape of an enormous “portal”.
The “door” is a 7 meters square on a side, in the lower part of which, in the center, there is a hollow section with no exit, wide enough for a person to enter, which, according to the beliefs of the Aymara, leads to the world of the spirits.
According to what is said, in the second half of the last century, a man of Aymara origin, named José Luis Delgado Mamani, had listened for a long time to the stories of shamans who described a mysterious “door” where in the past had been hidden a powerful “golden solar disk.”
When Mamani finally discovered the exact location of the “gate,” he interviewed the local people and found several similarities between the oral accounts and the historical period of the conquistadors. The Spaniards of the 16th century, when they realized that people worshiped the “gate of Aramu Muru”, began to spread the idea that it was a pagan superstition and that its worship led only to hell (for this reason, some countrymen call it “devil's door”).
But what is the origin of the legend of Aramu Muru? According to the oral traditions of the shamans of Lake Titicaca, Aramu Muru was an Inca priest who, to prevent the Spanish conquerors from taking possession of the large golden solar disk that was guarded in the temple of Coricancha, in Cusco, took him far away, hiding for years in the mountains.
Finally, he reached the “portal” and crossed it, entering another dimension and taking with the golden solar disk, thus preserving it from the plundering fury of the conquerors.
This legend was taken up and expanded by the American medium G. H. Williamson in his book “The Secret of the Andes”, in which the fantastic qualities of the golden solar disk are described.
Below is a passage from Williamson's book:
...that Disk was not used merely as an object of worship, nor as the symbolic representation of our Solar Sun. It was also a scientific instrument, and the secret of its power originally came from the darkness of the past in the time of the Elder Race. In part, it was an object of worship because it was used in ritualistic temple services as a focus or point of concentration for those who meditated. It also served as a symbolic representation of the Great Central Sun, or Cosmic Sun, which, in turn, symbolizes the Creator. As a scientific instrument it was used connected to a complex system of pure gold mirrors, reflectors and lenses to produce healing in the bodies of those who were inside the Temple of Light. Truly, that was the reason why it was called the Temple of Divine Light. In addition to all those functions, the Solar Disk was a focal point for the concentration of dimensional quality. When the disk was struck by a scientific priest, who understood its way of operating, it established certain vibrational conditions that could produce intense earthquakes and, if they continued for a long time, cause a modification in the rotation of the Earth itself. When made to harmonize with a person's peculiar frequency pattern he could transport that person to any place he wanted to go simply by creating the mental image of the journey. It was, therefore, an object of transportation.
Today, the Aramu Muru “portal” is frequented by various groups of people who believe in the legend of Aramu Muru and in the existence of an underground world inhabited by beings endowed with deep spirituality. Believers kneel in the central cavity and rest their foreheads in a circular hole, in order to connect the so-called “third eye” with the “portal.”
When I arrived at the so-called “stone forest” that surrounds the Aramu Muru portal, I decided to analyze the surroundings to try to figure out if the place was inhabited in ancient times.
During my brief walk nearby, I saw many rocks that were probably carved there to be used as “ceremonial altars.” I am convinced that the ancient inhabitants of the area considered this place sacred and that they began to make offerings to the Sun god right in the place where the portal was subsequently created, with a considerable expenditure of energy and resources. In the other part of the “portal” there is a tunnel, called Chinkana in Quechua, which according to some local beliefs leads to Tiahuanaco and the island of the Sun (or Titicaca Island). The tunnel was blocked with stones to prevent children from getting into it and then getting lost in its depths.
But what really happened to the Coricancha gold solar disk?
From the chronicles of several writers, today we know that the golden solar disk was a real object and that it was found in the Coricancha or temple of the Sun, in Cusco, before the arrival of the conquerors.
From the analysis of Lehman-Nitsche's book, “Coricancha, the Temple of the Sun in Cuzco and the images of the main altar” (1928), it is deduced that in the temple, in addition to a large gold plaque where it had been carved, among other figures, an oval shape illustrating Viracocha, there had been an anthropomorphic statue of Viracocha (called Punchau), and several gold discs, one of them very large and heavy, all of which represented the face of Viracocha.
According to Pedro Cieza de León, the great golden solar disk had a diameter like a chariot wheel and a finger thick.
Several chroniclers of the time report that, after the Spanish looted the Coricancha, one of the gold discs was given as loot to the soldier Mancio Serra de Leguizamo, who lost it playing dice the same night he received it (from this episode the proverb was born: don't risk the Sun before it rises).
There are also other sources, subsequent to the conquest, that transmit that when the Spanish captured Túpac Amaru I in Vilcabamba in 1572, they found another gold disc, which the same viceroy Francisco de Toledo proposed to send to the pope.
If we refer, however, to the great golden solar disk, the most important, which was never found, we have to consider other sources.
Bartolomé de las Casas relates, in his History of the Destruction of the Indies:
The Indians hid the Sun that never appeared. The Indians say that the Inca who is raised has it with him.
The writer Cabello Balboa maintains that when General Atoc left, under the order of Huáscar, for Quito, in order to defeat Atahualpa, took with him the great golden solar disk hoping that having the disk in his possession Atahualpa would submitted to him and declared himself a prisoner.
According to Cabello Balboa, therefore, when the Spanish sacked the Coricancha, the golden solar disk was no longer in Cusco, and was then given to Túpac Amaru I.
Lehman-Nitsche also agrees that the golden disk that they gave to Mancio Serra Leguizamo was not the great golden solar disk that Atoc took to Quito.
Even Cieza de León relates, in the Chronicle of Peru:
The figure of the Tici Viracocha (the golden solar disk) and that of the Sun and the Moon (the lateral disks) and other known pieces have not been found when the city of Cusco was conquered, nor is there any Indian or Christian who knows or understands where are you.
Although this last annotation does not agree with the reference that one of the small gold discs was given to Mancio Serra Leguizamo and that another was found during the capture of Túpac Amaru I, it is clear that the large gold solar disc was not ever found.
This is how the following questions arise: Is there any truth in the legend of the priest Aramu Muru? Is it possible that a group of priests, belonging to the Inca nobility, managed to escape from Vilcabamba before Túpac Amaru I was captured and the true golden solar disk was hidden in some secret place in the jungle? Does this place perhaps correspond to the Inca Paititi, built in ancient times by the cultural hero Inkarri?
YURI LEVERATTO
