Authors: Yukio Mishima
Temple Of Dawn (16 page)
His love for the maiden aroused the wrath of his jealous wife, Hera. She summoned the subterranean Titans, and they enticed the baby Zagreus with a toy. Once captured, he was murdered, dismembered, cooked, and eaten. Only his heart was offered to Zeus by Hera. In turn, Zeus gave it to Semele, and a new Dionysus was reborn.
Meanwhile, Zeus was infuriated by the Titans’ act and he attacked them with thunder and lightning. When they were completely destroyed, man was born of their ashes.
Thus, mankind was given the evil character of the Titans and at the same time possessed godlike elements transmitted by Zagreus’s flesh that the Titans had consumed. Accordingly, the Orpheans proclaimed that man must worship Dionysus by
extasis
and reestablish his holy origin by self-deification. The ritual of the sacred feast persists in the Christian sacrament of the holy eucharist.
extasis
and reestablish his holy origin by self-deification. The ritual of the sacred feast persists in the Christian sacrament of the holy eucharist.
Orpheus the musician, murdered and dismembered by Thracian women, seems to reenact the death of Dionysus; and his death, rebirth, and the mysteries of Hades became significant Orphean doctrines.
As wandering souls who left their bodies by
extasis
were thought to be able to make contact for a short time with the mysteries of Dionysus, men were clearly aware of the separation of body and soul. Their flesh was formed of the evil ashes of the Titans and their soul embraced the pure fragrance of Dionysus. Furthermore, the doctrine of Orpheus taught that earthly suffering did not end with corporeal death; the soul, having escaped its dead body, was obliged to spend some time in Hades before reappearing on earth and transmigrating into another human or animal body. Thus was it destined to traverse limitless “cycles of life.”
extasis
were thought to be able to make contact for a short time with the mysteries of Dionysus, men were clearly aware of the separation of body and soul. Their flesh was formed of the evil ashes of the Titans and their soul embraced the pure fragrance of Dionysus. Furthermore, the doctrine of Orpheus taught that earthly suffering did not end with corporeal death; the soul, having escaped its dead body, was obliged to spend some time in Hades before reappearing on earth and transmigrating into another human or animal body. Thus was it destined to traverse limitless “cycles of life.”
The immortal soul, originally holy, must traverse such a dark passage because of the original sin of the flesh: namely, the Titans’ murder of Zagreus. Man’s earthly life added new sins, and they renewed themselves. Thus, mankind is eternally incapable of escaping from the suffering of this cycle of lives. A man is not necessarily reincarnated in human form, but depending upon the gravity of his sins, may be reborn as a horse, sheep, bird, dog, or cold snake fated to crawl in the dust.
The Pythagoreans, who had been called the successors of the Orpheans and credited with developing their theories, held to the unique doctrines of samsaric reincarnation and Universal Breath.
Honda could detect a trace of the latter principle in King Milinda’s concept of life and the soul; he had long meditated on Indian philosophy. It also bore a resemblance to the mysticism of ancient Shinto.
Compared to the fairy-tale cheerfulness of the
jataka
, tales drawn from the various lives of the Buddha, in Theravada Buddhism, the Western theory of reincarnation, darkened by gloomy Ionic melancholy, depressed Honda in spite of the fact that both came from the same source. Consequently he tended to heed Heraclitus who had claimed that all things were in flux.
jataka
, tales drawn from the various lives of the Buddha, in Theravada Buddhism, the Western theory of reincarnation, darkened by gloomy Ionic melancholy, depressed Honda in spite of the fact that both came from the same source. Consequently he tended to heed Heraclitus who had claimed that all things were in flux.
Enthusiasmus
and
extasis
merged in this philosophy of transitory unity, according to which one was all, one came from the all, and all from the one. In the area which transcended time and space, ego disappeared, unity with the universe was easily accomplished, and man was able to become through this divine experience every thing. There, man, nature, bird, animal, forests rustling in the breeze, streams sparkling with the scales of fish, cloud-capped mountains, blue seas dotted with islands—all were able to disengage themselves from their earth-bound existence and unite in harmony. It was such a world that Heraclitus talked about.
and
extasis
merged in this philosophy of transitory unity, according to which one was all, one came from the all, and all from the one. In the area which transcended time and space, ego disappeared, unity with the universe was easily accomplished, and man was able to become through this divine experience every thing. There, man, nature, bird, animal, forests rustling in the breeze, streams sparkling with the scales of fish, cloud-capped mountains, blue seas dotted with islands—all were able to disengage themselves from their earth-bound existence and unite in harmony. It was such a world that Heraclitus talked about.
The living and the dead,The awake and the sleeping,The young and the old are all one and the same.When the ones change, they become the others.When those shift again, they become these.God is day and night.God is winter and summer.God is war and peace.God is fertility and famine.He transforms into many things.Day and night are one.Goodness and badness are one.The beginning and the end of a circle are one.
These lines represent the sublimity of Heraclitian thought, and when Honda came into contact with it, was blinded by its brilliance, he experienced a certain liberation; but at the same time he was cautious lest he remove too hastily the hands with which he covered his dazzled eyes. For one thing, he was afraid of going blind; for another, he felt that he was still too immature in his sensitivity and ideas to accept such boundless illumination.
14
FOR THIS REASON
Honda averted his eyes for a while and concentrated on his studies of the theories of samsara and reincarnation that had been revived in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Italy.
Tommaso Campanella, a monk living in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, believed in the theory of the life cycle and reincarnation. This heretic and rebellious philosopher was welcomed in France after spending twenty-nine years in prison. There he was happy and much honored during the last years of his life. When Louis XIV was born, he dedicated to him an
éloge
in which he claimed that the royal birth was proof of his theory of reincarnation.
éloge
in which he claimed that the royal birth was proof of his theory of reincarnation.
Campanella learned the Brahman theory of samsara and transmigration from Botero and there discovered that the souls of the dead transmigrated even into monkeys, elephants, or cows. Borrowing the Pythagorean belief in the immortality of the soul and in reincarnation, he designated the inhabitants of his principal work,
Città del sole
, to be “wise men who had originally come from India to escape the pillage and atrocities of the Mogul.” “Pythagorean Brahmans,” he called them, yet he left their belief in samsara ambiguous. Campanella himself claimed that after death, the human soul did not go to hell, purgatory, or heaven.
Città del sole
, to be “wise men who had originally come from India to escape the pillage and atrocities of the Mogul.” “Pythagorean Brahmans,” he called them, yet he left their belief in samsara ambiguous. Campanella himself claimed that after death, the human soul did not go to hell, purgatory, or heaven.
It is said that his Caucasian Sonnets vaguely suggest the theory of samsara. In these poems, he expressed his emotions of sorrow. “I cannot believe that my death will bring improvement to mankind; frequently, even if misfortune be averted, evil prospers more than ever. Human senses survive eternally after death; such senses simply forget the suffering endured during life in this world. If we cannot even know whether our former lives were spent in torture or in peace, how shall we know anything of the afterlife?”
In contrast to the jubilation Honda had witnessed in Benares, the Europeans who discoursed on reincarnation were especially depressed by the adversity and sorrow of this life. Furthermore, they did not seek joy in a hereafter, but hoped merely for oblivion.
On the other hand, the eighteenth-century philosopher Giovanni Batista Vico, a ferocious opponent of Descartes, advocated reincarnation and a return to eternity, and his bravery and militancy in his struggle made him a forerunner of Nietzsche, who held the same views. Honda read with pleasure one passage from Vico, in which he praised the Japanese as being heroic, even though he had but a vague knowledge of Japan. “The Japanese eulogize the heroic man as did the Romans at the time of the Punic Wars. They are fearless in military affairs and speak a language similar to Latin.”
Vico interpreted history through his concept of recurrence. In short, he maintained that each civilization came to its final phase with “Premeditated Savagery,” which is far worse than the earlier “Natural Savagery.” The latter signifies a noble naïveté, but the former indicates cowardly cunning and insidious trickery. Thus the venomous “Premeditated Savagery” or “Civilized Savagery” must necessarily perish, after centuries of progress, by a renewal of “Natural Savagery.”
Honda felt that an example was to be found in the brief history of modern Japan.
Vico believed in the order of the universe as propounded by Catholicism; yet he was close to the theory of causation through karma. “God the creator,” he said agnostically, “and the created are separate entities. The raison d’être and essence of things are individual in each entity; therefore, the created is an entirely different entity from the godhead as far as its essence is concerned.”
If one holds the created—that which appears to be an entity—to be dharma and atman and if one regards its raison d’être to be karma, then deliverance is simply attaining the entity of the creator on another dimension.
Vico claimed in his theology that God’s creation changed “internally” into the created and “externally” into matter, and thus the world was created in time. He also said that the human spirit, being God’s reflection, was able to grasp the concept of infinity and eternity and was immortal. It is not confined by the body and consequently is not limited by time. But he did not provide an answer to the question why the limitless being was shackled by limited things, claiming this to be unknowable. But this is the very point at which the wisdom of the theory of samsara and reincarnation should begin.
On reflection, it is surprising that Indian philosophy, persistently insisting on the power of knowledge, did not reject fantasy or dreams and never developed its own agnosticism.
15
WHEN
H
ONDA DISCOVERED
that a Western tradition of reincarnation had been feebly handed down by lone and solitary thinkers, he mused that it was only natural that King Milinda, who had ruled northwestern India in the second century
B.C.
, seemed to have quite forgotten the Pythagorean philosophy of ancient Greece when he met the Elder, Nagasena, and plied him with questions. He was most interested in, and at the same time skeptical of, the more profound Buddhist theories of samsara and transmigration.
The first volume of
The Questions of King Milinda
, as it appears in the Japanese translation of the Buddhist canon, opens with the following description of the ruler’s capital:
The Questions of King Milinda
, as it appears in the Japanese translation of the Buddhist canon, opens with the following description of the ruler’s capital:
Thus I have heard: In one of the regions colonized by the Greeks, there is a city called Sagara. It is a great center for commerce and foreign trade and is marked by purple mountains and clear water, parks, woods, and fields, forming a pleasant, natural paradise on earth; and its inhabitants are devoutly religious. Furthermore, their enemies have all been driven away, so that they feel not the slightest insecurity or oppression. The king’s castle is surrounded by fortifications, a variety of ramparts, majestic, forbidding side gates, high white walls, deep moats, and the protection provided is complete. The city’s squares, crossroads, and marketplaces are most aptly designed: beautifully decorated stores are filled with countless invaluable merchandise. Several hundreds of charitable hospitals add dignity to the city, while several thousand mansions and high pavilions tower like the Himalayas high in the clouds. And in the city streets, throngs of people are visible, men like pines, women like flowers, priests, warriors, farmers and traders, serfs—people of all classes pass by in groups.All the citizenry welcomes scholars and teachers of various religions and doctrines. Thus, Sagara appears as a nest for elders and academicians of all persuasions. Also in the streets stand eave to eave both large and small dry goods merchants who handle goods woven in Benares called
khotumbari
and all other kinds of goods and fabrics. Lavish fragrance wafts from the flower and incense market, purifying the air of the city. Other shops handle wishing pearls and divers other gems and goods of gold, silver, copper, or stone. It is as though one has stepped into a dazzling mine of jewels. Then, as one turns in another direction, there are great stores for grain and ware-houses full of priceless merchandise, shops with all manner of food and drink and cakes; nothing is lacking. In short, Sagara rivals Uttarakuru in wealth, and its prosperity compares well with that of Arakamandar, the city of heaven.
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