Unit 5

English 203: 
Literature of the NonWestern World 
Introduction .Explication Questions Review

Explication:
Reading:  567-624
                      India's Heroic Age: 567-75
                     Ramayana: 576-612
                     Bhagavad-Gita: 612-24

Ramayana:

As you know, the heroes of Western literature struggle to create a unique identity.  Homer's Odysseus offers an example.  He is rarely told exactly what to do.  More often, Athena or another god tells him: "I shall not plan the whole action for you now" (12.61).  Odysseus listens to Athena (who is Reason personified), deciding "to do the wise thing, as I see it./ I cannot think it through a better way" (5.373, 377).  Of course, OD is human & makes mistakes.  Readers are invited to emulate OD, not by imitating the details of his fictional life, but by similarly relying on reason, rather than authority, to make important life decisions.  Rama & Sita are altogether different.  They do not ask their devotees to be analytic or to think things through for themselves.  Although they live human lives, they are not really human like us.  They are avatars who descend into our world in order to perfectly illustrate life lived in accordance with  dharma.  Instead of marching through life, Rama & Sita dance.  Instead of having emotional depth, they are elegant.

Although Westerners have the counsel of Athena & the Ten Commandments, we still believe that each individual constructs a unique life by creatively interpreting how such principles can be applied in unforeseen situations.  The Last Judgment is personal.  You appear before God in order to explain your life, or to have your life judged.  If you  lived to be 80 or 85 years old, there would be millions of decisions that wove a unique identity.  Moral decisions constitute our identity, which Westerners have traditionally hoped would endure in the next life.  Again Asia has an entirely different outlook.  Personal identity is the problem.  It is comparable to sin.  It is a delusion that causes suffering.  It can be "slimmed down" & possibly eradicated by following the dictates of dharma, instead of responding to desire or emotion.

Western creation stories, like Genesis, often assume that a transcendent power (e.g., Yahweh) created our world & remains unaffected by it.  Thus Western cosmology begins with nouns.  God exists without prior cause or process.  He is complete or perfect & therefore not "in process."  He creates order, which is another noun or set of objects: "this is the sun, the moon, the stars."  Asian thought (Daoism as well as Hinduism) begins with verbs.  We feel that there is a process, but nothing is yet discernible.  There are no hard edges or measurable forms.  Everything remains in the unconscious, unformed, not yet expressed in words.  The Rig Veda says:
At first was neither Being nor Nonbeing.
There was not air nor yet sky beyond.
What was its [Brahman, Dao, God]  wrapping?  [i.e., how was it discernible]
Was Water there, unfathomable & deep?  [the unconscious is often associated with deep water].

The One breathed without breath, by its own impulse.
Other than that [there] was nothing else at all.

Darkness was there, all wrapped around by darkness,
& all was Water indiscriminate.  Then
that which was hidden by the Void, that One, emerging,
stirring, through power of Ardor, came to be.

The "power of Ardor" is tapas. Tapas means heat.  This is not heat caused by burning wood.  It is heat caused by burning karma; the kind of heat that is generated by an effort of will.  The effort is to control your emotions instead of allowing them to carry you where they will.  Inclination is negated or folded back on itself, which seems to intensify the game of temptation & resistance.  Your power of being able to control yourself seems to increase.  Perhaps the objects of desire also seem to have an increased power or attraction.  Hindu myth suggests that tapas creates a kind of churning motion: attraction / resistance; attraction / resistance.

In the beginning Love arose,
which was the primal germ cell of the mind.
The Seers, searching in their hearts with wisdom,
discovered the connection of Being in Nonbeing.

A crosswise line cut Being from Nonbeing.
What was described above it, what below?
Bearers of seed there were & mighty forces,
thrust from below & forward move above.

Is this order? Certainly not the kind of order (logos) we are familiar with in Genesis or Homer. Notice the emphasis on motion.  The divine is first evident as a verb, a process.  It does not seem especially intent on hammering out an objective order (nouns).  "A crosswise line" suggests instability.  "Thrust from below & forward move above."  What is this?  What is thrust from below to move forward & rise above?  We don't know.  There is no discernible object.  The passage describes a dynamic process, but it does not illustrate any objective or mathematical form.  Even if it did, our author has a surprising point to make about the powers of discernment:
Who really knows [if creation began in this manner]?  Who can presume to tell it?
Whence was it born?  Whence issued this creation?
Even the Gods came after its emergence.
Then who can tell from whence it came to be?

That out of which creation has arisen,
whether it held it firm [like Yahweh firmly "holding" created objects] or it did not,
He who surveys it in the highest heaven,
He surely knows--or maybe He does not!

More than Christianity, Hinduism offers both popular & intellectual versions without trying to determine which explanation or approach is better.  It does not try to determine this because there can be no objective standard.  "Better" in this sense means more effective in making you sensitive to the divine.  So villagers pray to Rama & Sita & Hanuman or to Krishna or to numerous other forms that the divine (Brahman) may take; while intellectual types recognize all of these as stories that are not objectively true.  The last line in our Veda suggests this sequence:

Brahman is dynamic but unpredictable, incalculable, & indiscernible.
This divine process engenders discernible forms (nouns).
The forms we are interested in are not objective, but those that offer us solace & guidance.
Rama & Sita are such forms.  They evoke devotion.
Brahman produces Vishnu, the celestial divinity who sustains Being or supports our world.
When things are very bad, Vishnu sends his avatar into our world to illustrate Dharma.
Vishnu has sent his avatar into the world many times.  The most popular forms were those of Rama & Krishna.
Rama has no interest in struggling to achieve an identity.  His purpose is to illustrate the perfect moral life that we should aspire to.

There are parallels between China & India.  In both societies the assumption is that social roles are prefabricated.  They are like costumes that one wears or scripts that one follows, as in a stage drama.  The Western notion of "self-discovery" or "doing-your-own-thing" is not a social option.  No one believes that he is involved in creatively constructing a unique identity.  As you know, in China Confucianism suggests that there are many role models to emulate in order to live like a human being instead of a monkey.  In India, Dharma is not constructed by human behavior (like li in China).  It is divine.  It is personified by Rama.

In the West Satan may be the father of lies & offer St. George an opportunity to slay dragons.  This illustrates our Western bias towards objectifying feelings, projecting them into objects like snakes.  Kill the snake/dragon & supposedly you will feel better.  In India, the worst evil is doing violence, because it allows your worst emotions to impel you to harm someone else in the illusory belief that you are somehow doing good.  There is no good to be done in any objective sense.  Actions in this world are like the actions of a stage play.  Moreover, all actions in this world are like smoke, doomed to dissipate & to be forgotten without a trace.  The world offers you an opportunity to burn up karma (illusion, craving), not to fight for the truth.  Again Rama illustrates the process.  To emulate Rama, you must read the lines of the script (dharma) that you are given by karma.  You have a particular caste identity (varna-dharma) at a particular time of life (asrama-dharma).  These suggest roles or parts of the drama of life appropriate for your present stage of emotional development.  Rama is a Khastriya (warrior caste) & a young newlywed.  Let us turn to the text to see how his behavior is specified by these factors:
S1    it was mighty Rama who brought his father the greatest joy.  For he surpassed his brothers in virtue.

This may sound like Chinese hsiao (filial piety), but remember that Hindu Dharma is divine & not simply elegant behavior.  Since there is no figure like Yahweh to punish transgressions, you may ask what is the incentive to perform duty or Dharma?  Again there is a disconnect between the Western assumption that there must be an objective answer to this question & the Eastern assumption that we are talking about the process of human growth & development.  Someone who rebels, refusing to perform his duty at a particular time of life that is also appropriate to his caste, is comparable to a high school drop out who feels that his studies are imposed upon him unjustly & that they are a waste of time.  Perhaps he fixes his attention on a particular teacher or the vice principal, feeling that he is his enemy.  He may actually do violence (himsa) against this person feeling that this will somehow solve his problems.  Such actions do not solve problems.  They create greater problems; & there is still the original work of growth & development to do.

S1    Rama did all that was required to please & benefit the people of the city.
        He scrupulously did all that his mothers required of him & attended to his gurus' requirements.
        . . . so great was his self-control.

We often find it very difficult to control our emotions, especially anger.  Rama is a warrior.  Like Homer's heroes, Rama must have spent years practicing various martial arts.  Homer's great heroes, such as Achilles, cannot control their rage.  Most of the time this is not problematic for them, because they are nearly invincible.  But they are human.  Even Achilles perishes.  Now consider Rama:
He was invincible in combat, even if the gods & asuras themselves were to unite in anger against him.

Do you recall Gilgamesh in the beginning of that work?  He was haughty & arrogant, because of his great power.  In contrast, Rama:
S1    was never spiteful, haughty, or envious, & he had mastered his anger.
        . . . he was patient as the earth

An invincible warrior, Rama also has a fully developed compassionate & feminine side.  Like an ideal mother:
S1    His one desire is that the world should prosper, he shows compassion to all creatures

Naturally such excellence is recognized:
S1    Recognizing that his son was endowed with these consummate virtues, the great king consulted 
        with his advisers & chose him to be prince regent.

The king decides to abdicate, offering a distinctively Hindu reason.  The prophetic religions counsel us to resist temptation, paradoxically promising to gratify those temptations in the next life.  Hinduism suggests that repression or resistance does not work.  You may successfully resist actually performing or doing the sinful act, but the desire to do it remains.  In fact it may actually increase in intensity because of resistance & repression. Tantric practice (tapas) uses this dialectic to accelerate the process of reaching moksha.  However, tantric practice (such as putting yourself in a situation that is sexually exciting) is called "riding the back of the tiger."  The point is that if you slip off the tiger, you get eaten up.  In other words tantra  is dangerous & esoteric.   In general, Hinduism believes that the only way to burn up & get rid of desire is to gratify it under the right circumstances.  The project is to exhaust desire so that it no longer compels us.  Thus the king says:
S4    I am old, my life has been long.  I have enjoyed all the pleasures I desired.
        I have experienced every pleasure, everything I wanted

Rama invites his brother Laksmana to be co-regent:
S4    Come, Laksmana, rule this land with me.  Sovereignty falls to your share, too, for you are my second self.

Again we are reminded of Gilgamesh.  Enkidu is said to be "the spit of Gilgamesh" (p. 17).  Gilgamesh sought to destroy evil in the form of the wilderness (Humbaba) & death.  In India, evil is always recognized as one's uncontrolled emotions & never seriously construed as an object that can be violently destroyed.  Thus Rama prepares for kingship by:
S6    Meditating on the god Narayana [Vishnu], maintaining silence & restraining his desire.

Rama is:
S7    the blameless prince who has mastered his anger

In contrast:
S7   Consumed with rage, the malevolent Manthara approached Kaikeyi

At first the hunchback is disappointed.  Kaikeyi says:
S7    I draw no distinction between Rama & Bharata, & so I am perfectly content that the king should consecrate Rama as king.
        You could not possibly tell me better news than this.
S8    But Manthara was beside herself with rage

Finally Manthara's malicious jealousy does its work to infect Kaikeyi.  Notice what is effective.  Kaikeyi cannot be convinced that her surrogate son Rama would ever do anything nasty to her biological son Bharata.  Jealously is attributed to the wives:
S8    Delight is truly in store for Rama's exalted women, & all that is in store for your daughters-in-law is misery, at Bharata's downfall.
Following this, Kaikeyi evidently is convinced that:
S8    When Rama secures control of the land, Bharata will be lost for certain.
S9    So Manthara spoke, & Kaikeyi, her face glowing with rage, [vows to have] Rama banished to the forest

The king is trapped by morality.  He has promised Kaikeyi two wishes; he has promised to do anything she asks.  If the king refuses to do what she asks, he will have violated dharma & thereby demonstrated that he is unfit to be king.

Let's take a bit of time to recognize 2 very different ethical theories that we are familiar with; although you are probably not familiar with their fancy names: deontological ethics & utilitarian ethics.  Utilitarian ethics claims that we can only determine a specific action's moral character by assessing its consequences.  The rule for Utilitarian ethics is to create the greatest good for the greatest number of people.  This initially sounds good, but the system quickly gets into trouble.  For example, the system can be made to defend slavery as a morally acceptable economic system that provides a high standard of living for the majority at the cost of an enslaved minority.  At this point most people are unwilling to accept Utilitarianism's claim that human actions are inherently neutral -- neither good or bad -- & that it is only the consequences of producing pleasure or pain that make an act right or wrong.  Most of us believe what deontological ethics claims: that many acts are inherently right or wrong regardless of their consequences.  Those who oppose abortion, e.g., generally do not want to argue the various consequences.  They do not wish to gloss over the initial recognition that the act is inherently wrong regardless of the consequences to the woman, to the family, to society, etc.

Like many of us today, the king is caught in a dilemma between these ethical systems.  Utilitarian analysis prompts the king to disregard his promise in order to crown Rama & thereby create the greatest good for the greatest number.  But deontological thinking cannot get beyond the recognition of the lie or broken promise.  Most Westerners would probably opt for the Utilitarian solution in this dilemma, because we believe that events in this world are decisively important.  Hinduism typically goes the other way, embracing the deontological outlook, in part because actions in this world are not objectively important.  Let's follow the ethical discussion.  Kaikeyi says:
S12    For people who understand the meaning of righteousness [Dharma} hold truth to be its essence.  
          Now, I am simply appealing to truth & exhorting you to do what is right

The king concedes:
S12    I am bound by the bond of righteousness [Dharma}  My mind is failing me!

His mind fails in the sense that he cannot think of a way to obey Dharma (keep the promise) & also create the greatest good by crowing Rama.  Attention shifts to Rama.  Perhaps he has the answer.  Of course he does.  But remember that Rama is Dharma.  So we can predict how he will resolve the dilemma or on which side he fall:
S16 When Rama, slayer of enemies, heard Kaikeyi's hateful words, like death itself, he was not the least disconcerted, but only replied,
      "So be it.  I shall go away to live in the forest."
      "I would gladly give up to my brother Bharata on my own, without any urging."

Rama explains his status & motives:
S16 It is not in the hopes of [personal] gain that I suffer living in this world.  . . . 
       I have but one concern & that is righteousness [Dharma].

As Krishna, Vishnu will emphasize a different form of Dharma.  As Rama, Vishnu here says:
S16    There is no greater act of righteousness [Dharma] than this: obedience to one's father & doing as he bids.

Until we are made self-conscious of our American cultural values, we tend to think everyone does pretty much the same things we do.  We tend to think that the most important emotional relationship in life is that between spouses.  This is not a universal belief.  It is not the case in India, where the relationship between mother & son is often more important than that between husband & wife.  In fact the wife is usually a girl that mother picked in a culture where marriage is arranged by one's parents.  Trying to dissuade Rama from going to the forest, Kausalya says:
S17    The joy & comfort I had not found to be within my husband's power to give me, Rama, 
          I cherished hopes I perhaps might find in a a son.

Mother tells Rama:
S18    I will not give you permission, you may not go away to the forest.

Laksmana articulates our objections:
S18    The king is perverse, old, & debauched by pleasures.
          What son, mindful of the conduct of kings, would take to heart the words of a king who has become a child again?
          Before anyone learns of this matter, let me help you seize control of the government.

Rama tells his brother:
S18    I well know, Laksmana, the profound affection you bear me.  But you fail to understand the real meaning of
          truth [Dharma] & self-restraint [tapas].
          So give up this ignoble notion that is based on the code of the kshatriyas; be of like mind with me & base
          your actions on righteousness, not violence.
This is somewhat surprising, because Krishna will tell Arjuna that his Khastriya caste duty is his first & inescapable duty.

When Rama informs Sita, his wife, that he is going to live in the forest for 14 years, she insists on sharing his fate:
S24   A wife . . . must share her husband's fate.
         It is not her father or mother, nor her son or friends or herself, but her husband, & he alone,
         who gives a woman permanent refuge in this world & after death.

Rama says "the forest is a place of utter pain" & privation, & that Sita:
S25    Must stay here & do your duty, not [do] what your heart desires.

Sita wins the argument by threatening suicide:
S26   A woman whose husband has left her cannot go on living, regardless of what advice you give me, Rama
         My husband is my deity.
         My union with you is sacred & shall last even beyond death.
S27   If you will not let me go to the forest when I am so set on it, I will take poison this very day.

There seems to be differences in Dharma between men & women.  Sita is intent on serving Rama, even if she will not do what he asks.  Rama is devoted to his mother, even if he will not do what she asks:
S27    Righteousness [Dharma] is this . . . submission to one's mother & father.  I could not bear to live
          were I to disobey their command.

Unfortunately, the section of the Ramayana we have introduces the characters but does not follow the plot very far.   Rama & Sita happily live in the forest until Ravana abducts Sita, taking her to far away Lanka.  Rama seems helpless to rescue her until Hanuman comes to his aid.  Hanuman is a golden langur monkey who shames us human beings who are so intent on our own petty concerns that we ignore God.  What does it suggest about us when a monkey recognizes God & responds in devotion while we rush about involved in our own fantasies?  Hanuman's monkey army builds a bridge to reach Lanka where a huge battle is fought to rescue Sita.

* * *

Bhagavad-Gita:

Your text says that "the Gita [was] originally an independent philosophical dialogue . . . placed in[to] the popular Mahabharata epic" (p. 613). Your text also says that "the Buddhist & Jain religions had gained a considerable following" at about the time that the Bhagavad-Gita was written. Jainism offered a very simple but demanding ethics. It required total nonviolence (ahimsa) against all beings, even insects. This meant that a devoted Jain could not farm. Buddhist offered a more complex ethics. In its own way, it was as demanding as Jainism. The person who was really serious about the practice of Buddhism would have to leave his family to join a monastic community. The Gita offered a 3rd choice that initially seemed much easier. At least it did not say that one had to give up farming &/or give up one's family to become a monk. It said that you could remain in the world, living the same life you always had, but that you could be detached from the events in that life so that you would not accrue more karma. Your entire life could be a kind of sacrifice. The key point of the Gita is bhakti marga. A marga is a path. Hinduism offers several paths that match various personalities. These margas developed historically, but we won't pay attention to that. Margas include:

Krishna says:
2.11   learned men do not grieve
         for the dead or the living.

Because they never really existed as autonomous entities. Brahman is life. All discernible shapes or beings -- Krishna, Arjuna, you & me -- are like individual waves in the ocean of Being.  We have nothing to worry about, because Krishna/Vishnu says:
2.12   Never have I not existed,
         nor you, nor these kings;
         & never in the future
         shall we cease to exist.
2.16   nor does being [ever] cease to exist
6.31   I exist in all creatures
         so the disciplined man devoted to me [the discipline of bhakti]
         grasps the oneness of life;
         wherever he is, he is in me.

Perhaps there is a parallel here between language & reality. In ancient Greece Parmenides got involved in such a parallelism. He reasoned that grammatically it made no sense to assert something as a verb & then negate or deny it in a prefix, which is case in saying "non-being." It makes no grammatical sense to say something is & then negate or deny that it is. The real problem came when Parmenides failed to see that language & reality are not the same thing. He thought that if it made no grammatical sense to simultaneously assert & negate the same thing, then something of the same thing was true about physical reality. He thought that non-being was the same thing as a vacuum or empty space. He deduced that empty space could not exist because "non-being" is self-cancelling or a contridiction. Consequently, movement could not occur, because there would be  no empty space for anything to move into. Of course we perceive movement, but it is an illusion like seeing that a stick poked into clear water appears to bend. We know better & consequently do not accept the evidence of our senses. Parmenides suggested that we should similarly distrust our senses in regard to change. The change we are worried about is death. The author of the Gita does not present the details of his thinking in the same way that Parmenides did, but he does seem to mix up grammar with empirical reality:
2.20   having been,
         it [being] will never not be:
         unborn, enduring,
         constant, & primordial,
         it is not killed
         when the body is killed

Like Parmenides, the author of the Gita reflects on the meaning of the word "being," thinking that being cannot somehow "not be."  Therefore death cannot be.  Of course the body dies, but if the soul/atman was the vivifying force of the body -- it doesn't perish:
2.30   The self embodied in the body
         of every being is indestructible

If you take up & put off bodies or incarnations like clothes, then you should be unconcerned about death:
2.22   As a man discards
         worn-out clothes . . .
         so the embodied self
         discards
         its worn-out bodies
         to take on other new ones.

Next Krishna tells Arjuna that he must perform his caste duty (varna-dharma):
2.31     Look to your own duty;
           do not tremble before it;
           nothing is better  for a warrior [Khastriya]
           than a battle of sacred duty.

It turns out that this is not quite true, or entirely true.  It is not enough to simply perform Dharma, one must also have the right attitude: 
2.47    Be intent on action,
2.50    Disciplined by understanding [i.e., mindfulness or self-monitoring]
          one abandons both good & evil deeds
2.52    When your understanding passes beyond
          the swamp of delusion,
          you will be indifferent to all

The delusion is ego identity; thinking that we are ultimately a historical person locked into a matrix of relationships & desires.  Even though Krishna talks about understanding (which implies jnana marga), it is clear that he advocates bhakti marga:
6.14  let him sit with discipline,
        his thought fixed on me, intent on me.
3.56  When his craving for pleasures has vanished,
        when attraction, fear, & anger are gone,
Then the atman is liberated from delusion.
In fact, Krishna specifically says bhakti is superior to jnana:
3.8    Perform necessary action [i.e., Dharma]
        it is more powerful than inaction
If, the performance is done correctly:
3.9   Action imprisons the world [by creating new karma]
        unless it is done as sacrifice:
        freed from attachment [desire], Arjuna,
        perform action as sacrifice!
3.19  Always perform with detachment
        any action you must do

Skipping back to the introduction (last lines of p. 614), Krishna declares:
If they rely on me, Arjuna
women, commoners, men of low rank
even men born in the womb of evil
reach the highest way

The Gita offers a path or marga of devotion (bhakti) that anyone & everyone can follow.  Hindus know the story of Rama from childhood stories & dramatic presentations.  They also revere the Gita as a book comparable to the New Testament for Christians.  Mahatma Gandhi memorized it.  Vinoba Bhave, a companion of Gandhi, sums up the message of the Gita:

"How does one become a flute in Krishna's hands?  What would it be like if He put me to his lips & drew sweet notes through me?  To be a flute means to become hollow.  But I am stuffed full with passions & desires.  How then can music come through me?  My tone is gruff.  I am gross.  I am filled with aham-kara, the sense of "I."  I  must empty myself of ego.  Only when I become fully free, altogether empty, will the Lord breath through me." (Talks on the Gita, 127).
 

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