The matryoshka has long been a fashionable Slavic souvenir. But matryoshka is not only a decoration or a souvenir, first of all it is a unique toy for children - very beautiful and useful. As there are many nesting dolls in the middle, so many secrets are contained in it. What do these painted dolls inserted into one another mean?
Any modern textbook can envy the developmental and educational value of matryoshka. This wonderful toy is a great gift for young children.
With the help of nesting dolls, you can teach children to highlight different qualities, sizes, compare objects in height, width, color and volume.
It promotes hand-eye coordination, develops perception and thinking in young children. The ability to disassemble and correctly assemble the nesting doll develops logical thinking, teaches counting in a playful way. But this toy also has many symbolic meanings.
It is known that any traditional toy is a teaching subject related to mythology.
Many researchers struggle with the matryoshka puzzle, and the symbolism of folk art is often lost in the mists of time.
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Legends about the origin of the matryoshka
At the end of the 19th century, a figurine of the Buddhist saint Fukuruma brought from Japan appeared in Russia. The figurine depicted a sage with his head outstretched from long meditation and consisted of 5 figures nested one into the other.
Wood turner Vasily Zvezdochkin carved similar figurines from wood, which were also inserted into one another, and the artist Sergei Malyutin painted them with a special painting. The first nesting doll showed a girl in a common city costume, and the toy itself consisted of eight figures.
According to the first legend, the name "Matryona" was then widespread. Hence the name - "nesting dolls".
The second legend says that the prototype of the Russian nesting doll has Indian roots. The origins go back to the ancient Indian sage Daruma (in Sanskrit - Bodhidharma), who moved to China in the 5th century. Daruma called for the comprehension of the truth through silent contemplation, and wooden dolls nesting one into another contributed to this. It is curious that the name Matryona (Matryoshka) coincides with the ancient Indian, or rather, the Aryan word MATRI (mother). In Indian (Vedic) mythology, divine mothers personified the creative forces of nature. Matris were considered as female personifications of the creative energy of the great gods: Brahma, Shiva, Skanda, Vishnu, Indra, etc. The number of Matri ranged from seven to fourteen. Matryoshka is a "mother", which symbolizes, in fact, a family, and even consisting of a different number of figures,which symbolize children of different ages.
According to the third legend, matryoshka dolls were known much earlier. Some ancient Indian legends date the origin of these divine figures to the third millennium BC. and associate them with the ancient Indian ancestral home, located on the territory of modern Russia. Translated from Sanskrit, the proto-language of the Aryans, "Mat-r sh-ka" is "Mother Risshii-ki" or "Mother of the merry sages", "Goddess of Risshii, Rosshii". Apparently, this is why Matryoshka immediately gained unprecedented recognition in the world as a symbol of Russian folk art.
Legends are legends, but a single version of the origin of the matryoshka has never been reached. Read more about searching for an answer to the question "When and where did the matryoshka first appear, who invented it?" can be read here.
Get to the bottom of
Experts believe that the Russian master, who sharpened the matryoshka, remembered and knew Russian fairy tales well and enclosed in the matryoshka the idea of finding the truth and the possibility of finding it only by "getting to the bottom" - the last figure.
Let us recall the fairy tale "Koschey the Immortal", where Ivan Tsarevich is looking for an egg in which a needle is enclosed - the death of Koschey the Immortal.
This egg was in a duck, a duck in a hare, a hare in a box, a box under an oak tree. Also, the multi-layered matryoshka teaches us to look for many meanings - to see the internal reasons behind the external, to perceive the world more deeply, not to judge superficially, to get to the bottom of the essence.
Matryoshka - a symbol of the Family
Let's think about the name. The word "matryoshka" comes from the word "mother".
Thus, this toy personifies the mother of a large family, being a symbol of motherhood and fertility. Matryoshka with a numerous matryoshka family conveys the image of the Sort, several generations of ancestors and descendants.
The multi-layered universe
Matryoshka is a symbol of the unity and multi-manifestation of the world. It seems to be one, but at the same time it consists of many of its manifestations, which are its small reflections. Therefore, the matryoshka also carries the idea of the reflection of the small in the great, of the macrocosm - in the microcosm.
Matryoshka with all its components is a symbol of the multidimensionality and multi-layeredness of the Universe and of man - his energy bodies. Our ancestors knew about this, so there were age-related initiations that helped to strengthen the corresponding energy bodies.
So, the smallest matryoshka is the physical body of a person, it fully matures by the first year of life, in order to strengthen it and help the child to establish himself in the world of Reveal.
Then the age-related dedication of Postryzhina is carried out. This nesting doll is red, since the physical body is connected with a red charm - Source.
The next matryoshka is the Heat (etheric) human body, fully formed by the age of three. To strengthen it, an age-specific dedication is carried out. Set on a horse - for boys, Zorya - Provestnitsa - for girls. This matryoshka is orange in color, since the etheric body is associated with the orange-colored spell - Zarod.
An even larger nesting doll - Navier (astral) human body - is yellow, associated with the Belly charm. It is formed by the age of 7, the dedication of Girdle is held for boys, Zakosyvanie - for girls.
The next matryoshka - Klubie (mental) body - is green, is formed by the age of 12-14, it is celebrated with the dedications of Yarene and Lelnik.
Blue nesting doll (throat chara Ustye) - The causal (causal) body, is formed by the age of 21, a person is ready to create his own space, which means to be initiated into a Husband or Wife - a wedding ceremony.
Blue Matryoshka (Chara Oko) - Kolob'e body (body of intuition and spiritual mind), a person is initiated into the Father or Mother.
The largest one is a purple nesting doll (chara Rodnik), symbolizes the Divya body (human soul, catheral, atmic body). A person is best aware of it when he is initiated into a Grandfather or Grandmother. The next matryoshka-bodies - the Right body and Jiva - have very high vibrations, therefore they have no color - this is already light.
As a result, the smallest matryoshka was always red, and the largest was purple. In the same way, these colors are distributed around the planet and in human bodies. The red color carries powerful forces, but its vibrations are not very high and do not allow it to rise into the sky. The red color attracts the body to Mother Earth and allows her to gain plenty of her life-giving power. A person has little energy of this type - little strength and vital activity. Orange color carries the power of fertility to everything. Yellow - gives health and resilience. Green - supports our mental strength and our intuition. Blue - promotes communication with other people, feeds our nervous and intellectual forces. Blue - reveals to us the knowledge of the laws of the Universe and the gift of foresight. Purple - controls the harmonious distribution of energies of all types in the body. Remember the rainbow: its colors always come in a strictly defined order - "Every hunter wants to know where the pheasant is sitting." Our nesting dolls were originally painted in the same way. Accident? But why, then, this style was passed on by the masters from generation to generation, as well as the proportions of the toy, remaining unchanged for many centuries?