Literary notes about navel (AI summary)
Writers have long deployed the word “navel” to evoke ideas of centrality, mystery, and life’s origin. In many works, it serves as a metaphor for the center of a community or the earth itself—for instance, a village is described as having its very navel at the churchyard's heart ([1]) and cities or even the world are likened to a navel in classical mythology ([2], [3]). The term also appears in ritualistic and mythic contexts, where the navel is linked with creation beliefs and supernatural power, as in the birth of deities from a divine navel ([4], [5], [6]). At the same time, “navel” is used more literally in anatomical descriptions and superstitions, such as references to the navel-string in ceremonies or as a point of physical vulnerability ([7], [8], [9]). Thus, across diverse genres—from mythological epic to mundane description—the word “navel” functions as a potent symbol bridging the intimate human body and the broader cosmos.
- This churchyard, whose stone and clay so cunningly intermingle, is in an intimate sense the very navel and centre of the village.
— from Wood and Stone: A Romance by John Cowper Powys - [63] Observe that, in classical antiquity, Babylon, Athens, Delphi, Paphos, Jerusalem, and so forth, each passed for the navel of the earth.
— from Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by the Native Religions of Mexico and Peru by Albert Réville - The city Jerusalem is situated in the very middle; on which account some have, with sagacity enough, called that city the Navel of the country.
— from The Wars of the Jews; Or, The History of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Flavius Josephus - And that ranger of the skies, that enemy of Swarbhanu, with soul absorbed in Yoga, entered into Kunti, and touched her on the navel.
— from The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 - And the Prana and all other airs of the system are seated in the navel.
— from The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 - He from whose navel, the lotus, from which Brahmá was born, springs.
— from The Rámáyan of Válmíki, translated into English verse by Valmiki - Sometimes, as we have seen, the last corn is regarded as the navel-string.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer - After a birth the Maoris used to bury the navel-string in a sacred place and plant a young sapling over it.
— from The Golden Bough: A Study of Magic and Religion by James George Frazer - When the cord is cut, a coin is placed over the navel for luck.
— from Omens and Superstitions of Southern India by Edgar Thurston
