The cosmic man was a treatise by Carl Jung, summarizing the principle of the primal 'man' or original man, being dismembered and from this dismemberment, making up the universe at large.
The purusha is another principle of this. The purusha giant was sacrificed by the gods. Ymir of Nordic mythology, was dismembered and created the nine worlds. In Egyptian myth, Osiris was dismembered. Greek, Dionysis was dismembered. Celtic, Cernunnos was dismembered and tossed into the cauldron. Kabbalah as the Adam Kadmon. Aztec the goddess was dismembered, Tlalteuctli, and created the earth. other myths from the aztecs have monsters being dismembered to create the heavens. Either way, numerous cultures had some form of dismemberment as a theme.
Why is it, this is nearly universal, the dismemberment theme? Incidentally, half the task of the path is to re-member the self, like bringing back parts of the self together again. The primal man is dismembered, we're born, and have to remember. As if our task is to go back to this original form of man before divided into many 'parts' to create all that we see in existence.
Course this doesnt mean a physical body, but an expression of the universe being 'one' being, all matter and everything being interconnected. It does also seem that much of the original cultures, viewed spirit either animistic or pantheist. But even from this 'oneness' came polytheism, except in many instances, it might be the gods themselves dividing the cosmic man into various parts to create the world.
Then the principle of gods and monsters. Sometimes its a deity who was dismembered, other times, a monster which was dismembered. Which also makes me wonder, were gods viewed as monsters, and monsters as gods? Perhaps both, that the universal soul could be both a great protagonist and antagonist. Have our best interest, or not. Which may explain some of the principles of chaos and order.
Then the other aspect of dismemberment, when Ive pondered on this principle, I can understand cultures were viewing the oneness, yet separatio of things. Was it that they did feel, manifestation couldn't occur without this separation - but at the same time - it wasn't ideal? Because dismemberment, doesnt sound ideal.
However, theres a certain theme of the sacredness in the dismemberment theme too. Since sacrifice is interrelated with most cultures, offerings, and so forth, even in past physical (literal) death, was a matter of a sacrifice some cultures felt, to appease the gods to sustain, is it based somewhat on the premise, that somehow an ultimate sacrifice had occured, so we're in some ways, bound to this as well? Then additionally, more of the principles of life and death intertwine - death occurs to bring life to the cosmos, and life to us, then we die and return back to the dismembered body of manifestation, only to be born 'again' into it.
Then of course, another thing, the shamanic initiation, employs the principle of dismemberment. This seems to be an ultimate rememberance as well. A way of remembering either primal man, or god or monster, being dismembered, the shaman has no choice then, but to identify with an original nature, from long ago a priori; could this possibly be why shamanic initiation and dismemberment go hand in hand? Which thereby would create an opening to an ancient world and original nature?
I suppose all we can do is attempt to our best ability to remember the self, and see if it goes that far when we're doing the work that we do in that realm.
