|Shiva Nataraja – Lord of the Dance|
This is an example from the Hindu tradition, which tells its greatest truths in epic myths – the Mahabharata and the Ramayana in particular. This myth comes from an excerpt from the wonderful book by Heinrich Zimmer (Joseph Campbell, ed.): Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization. I gave it to my students in Indian history every year, and always had my suspicions that I could have graded them on their reaction to it.
Here's the story.
The Parade of Ants
The endless cycle of Indras
Indra slew the dragon, a giant titan that had been couching on the mountains in the limbless shape of a cloud serpent, holding the waters of heaven captive in its belly.
The god flung his thunderbolt into the midst of the ungainly coils; the monster shattered like a stack of withered rushes. The waters burst free and streamed in ribbons across the land, to circulate once more throughout the body of the world.
This flood is the flood of life and belongs to all. It is the sap of field and forest, the blood coursing in the veins. The monster had appropriated the common benefit, massing his ambitious, selfish hulk between heaven and earth, but now was slain. The juices again were pouring. The titans were retreating to the underworlds; the gods were returning to the summit of the central mountain of the earth, there to reign from on high. ...
[Indra] summoned Vishvakarman, the god of arts and crafts, and commanded him to erect such a palace as would be worthy of the king of the gods. The miraculous genius, Vishvakarman, succeeded in constructing in a single year a shining residence, marvellous with palaces and gardens, lakes and towers.
But as work progressed, the demands of Indra became even more exacting and his unfolding visions vaster. ... he developed visions beyond visions of new and more complicated marvels. Presently the divine craftsman, brought to despair, decided to seek succour from [the creator god, Brahma].
[Brahma assured Vishvakarman that he would soon be relieved of his burden.]
The brahmin boy
The next morning, a brahmin boy carrying the staff of a pilgrim appeared at the gate of Indra. ... The two retired to the hall of Indra, where the king asked: "O venerable Boy, tell me the purpose of your coming."
The beautiful child replied with a voice that was as deep and soft as the slow thundering of auspicious rainclouds. "O King of Gods, I have heard of the mighty palace you are building, and have come to refer to you the questions in my mind. ... no Indra before you has ever succeeded in completing such a palace as yours is to be."
Indra, full of the wine of triumph, is amused at the mere boy's pretension to a knowledge of Indras earlier than himself. "Tell me, Child! Are they then so very many, the Indras and Vishvakarmans whom you have seen - or at least, whom you have heard of?"... [The boy says he knew Indra's father, Kashyapa, the old Tortoise man, and his grandfather, ... son of Brahma. ..]
"Oh King of Gods, I have known the dreadful dissolution of the universe. I have seen all perish, again and again, at the end of every cycle. At that terrible time, every single atom dissolves into the primal, pure waters of eternity, whence originally all arose. Everything then goes back into the fathomless, wild infinity of the ocean, which is covered with utter darkness and is empty of every sign of animate being.
Ah, who will count the universes that have passed away, or the creations that have risen afresh, again and again, from the formless abyss of the vast waters? Who will number the passing ages of the world, as they follow each other endlessly? And who will search through the wide infinities of space to count the universes side by side, each containing its Brahma, its Vishnu, its Shiva?
Who count the Indras in them all - those Indras side by side, who reign at once in all the innumerable worlds; those others who passed away before them; or even the Indras who succeed each other in any given line, ascending to godly kingship, one by one, and, one by one, passing away?
King of Gods, there are among your servants certain who maintain that it may be possible to number the grains of sand on earth and the drops of rain that fall from the sky, but no one will ever number all those Indras. This is what the Knowers know."
A procession of ants
[The boy continued to speak in this manner while, meanwhile,] a procession of ants had made its appearance in the hall. In military array, in a column four yards wide, the tribe paraded across the floor. [This sight set the holy child laughing. At Indra's stammering request, he explains his action]:
"I laughed because of the ants. The reason is not to be told. Do not ask me to disclose it. The seed of woe and the fruit of wisdom are enclosed within this secret. It is the secret that smites with an axe the tree of worldly vanity, hews away at its roots, and scatters its crown. This secret is a lamp to those groping in ignorance. This secret lies buried in the wisdom of the ages, and is rarely revealed even to saints. This secret is the living air of those ascetics who renounce and transcend mortal existence; but worldlings, deluded by desire and pride, it destroys."
The boy smiled and sank into silence. Indra regarded him, unable to move. "O Son of a Brahmin," the king pleaded presently, with a new and visible humility, "I do not know who you are. You would seem to be Wisdom Incarnate. Reveal to me this secret of the ages, this light that dispels the dark."
Thus requested to teach, the boy opened to Indra the hidden wisdom. "I saw the ants, O Indra, filing in long parade. Each was once an Indra like you, each by virtue of pious deeds once ascended to the rank of a king of gods. But now, through many rebirths, each has become again an ant.
This army is an army of former Indras. "Piety and high deeds elevate the inhabitants of the world to the glorious realm of the celestial mansions, or to the higher domains of Brahma and Shiva and to the highest sphere of Vishnu; but wicked acts sink them into the worlds beneath, into pits of pain and sorrow.
It is by deeds that one merits happiness or anguish, and becomes a master or a serf. It is by deeds that one attains to the rank of a king or Brahmin, or of some god or of an Indra or a Brahma. And through deeds again, one contracts disease, acquires beauty and deformity, or is reborn in the condition of a monster. "This is the whole substance of the secret. This wisdom is the ferry to beatitude across the ocean of hell."
Life in the cycle of the countless rebirths is like a vision in a dream. The gods on high, the mute trees and the stones, are alike apparitions in this phantasy. But Death administers the law of Time. Ordained by Time, Death is the master of all. Perishable as bubbles are the good and the evil of the beings of the dream. In unending cycles the good and evil alternate.
Hence, the wise are attached to neither, neither the evil nor the good. The wise are not attached to anything at all." The boy concluded the appalling lesson and quietly regarded his host. The king of gods, for all his celestial splendor, had been reduced in his own regard to insignificance.
The old hermit
|The Chinese equivalent|
"Each flicker of the eyelids of the great Vishnu registers the passing of a Brahma. Everything below that sphere of Brahma is as insubstantial as a cloud taking shape and again dissolving."... Abruptly the holy man vanished.
It had been the God Shiva himself. Simultaneously, the brahmin boy, who had been Vishnu, disappeared as well.
The king was alone, baffled and amazed. Indra pondered; and the events seemed to him to have been a dream. But he no longer felt any desire to magnify his heavenly splendour or to go on with the construction of his palace.
He summoned Vishvakarman. Graciously greeting the craftsman with honeyed words, he heaped on him jewels and precious gifts, then, with a sumptuous celebration, sent him home.
Indra now desired redemption. He had acquired wisdom, and wished only to be free. He entrusted the pomp and burden of his office to his son, and prepared to retire to the hermit life of the wilderness, whereupon his beautiful and passionate queen, Shachi, was overcome with grief.
Weeping in sorrow and utter despair, Shachi resorted to Indra's ingenious house priest and spiritual advisor, the Lord of Magic Wisdom, Brihaspati. Bowing at his feet, she implored him to divert her husband's mind from its stern resolve. The resourceful counsellor of the gods... listened thoughtfully to the complaint of the voluptuous, disconsolate goddess, and knowingly nodded assent.
With a wizard's smile, he took her hand and conducted her to the presence of her spouse. In the role of spiritual teacher, he discoursed on the virtues of the spiritual life, but on the virtues also, of the secular. He gave to each its due.
[Indra ought not to abandon his life, but he most certainly ought to keep the endless cycles of the universe in mind in order to have the proper humility and perspective regarding his works in life.
The vision of the countless universes bubbling into existence side by side, and the lesson of the unending series of Indras and Brahmas would have annihilated every value of individual existence. Between this boundless, breathtaking vision and the opposite problem of the limited role of the short-lived individual, the myth effected the re-establishment of a balance.
Brihaspati, wisdom incarnate, teaches Indra how to grant to each sphere its due. We are taught to recognize the divine, the impersonal sphere of eternity, revolving ever and agelessly through time. But we are also taught to esteem the transient sphere of the duties and the pleasures of individual existence, which is as real and as vital to the living human as a dream is to the sleeping soul.]
It doesn't matter if you have problems with the notion of reincarnation, or a profusion of gods. All that's needed is to stand back from the story, and draw out its essential message[s].
That's the beauty of myth. It talks to us at our own level of understanding, and this changes with time and experience of the world. But what we must not do is to treat the myth as historical fact, and defend it word for word as if it were.
Tandava: Shiva's Cosmic Dance p. 151-155
My thanks to the author of a review of Zimmer's book for excerpts, some of which I have corrected. As he is using an invisible page I presume he does not want to be acknowledged. I will happily do so if he wishes.