The Rise of Wisdom Moon. Krishna mishra

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      sends the order to Lust that Lex be brought under control. To ensure, too, that Peace, Faith and the other allies of Intuition are suitably neutralized, he sends for his leading partisans: Lord Anger and Sir Greed, Lady Craving and Mistress Harm. Despite their assurances, Nescience nonetheless remains concerned that Peace presents a graver risk than his followers can admit. As she is the daughter of Faith, and Faith, in turn, the constant companion of Upanishad, he must devise a means to drive these last two apart. Peace, on learning of her mother’s disappearance, will then be left off-guard and vulnerable. In the final scene of the act, he hatches his plan: the seductive and devious Miss Conception, the very incarnation of false ideas, is dispatched to work her wiles on hapless Faith.

      As the third act unfolds, Peace is found weeping in distress at her mother’s absence. She goes so far as to contemplate suicide, and is dissuaded only by the entreaties of her friend Mercy, who urges her not to abandon the search for her mother, even if it takes her among heretics and outcastes. The pair sets out, meeting in turn a Jain ascetic, a Buddhist monk, and a Skullman, who follows the transgressive path of tantric Shaivism. All three are found to be accompanied by their respective versions of Faith, but Mercy and Peace discern that none is true Faith, Peace’s mother. They are not imbued with the principle of truth and purity (sattva), but are, rather, the daughters of the dark and dull element (tamas), or of energy and excitation (rajas). The Skullman, moreover, is an adept of the black arts and so sets about to deploy a potent spell called the “Great Terrorress” (Mahabhairavi) to capture true Faith, together with Lex.

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      introduction

      Love meets Faith in the fourth act, after the latter has managed to escape from the Terrorress’s clutches following the Skullman’s conjurations. It was, indeed, the yogini Hail Vishnu who succeeded in counteracting the spell, and she, too, has been busy organizing Intuition’s forces in the struggle against Magnus Nescience. Intuition, for his part, weakened by the run-up to war, has retreated to Radha—the hometown of Egoismo—in Bengal, where, practicing austerities, he prepares himself for union with Upanishad. He calls upon those among his forces who are most capable of defeating Nescience’s greatest warriors: Analyst is to vie with Lust, Patience with Anger, and Contentment with Greed. Each is called upon in turn to explain the means for victory at their disposal. The troops assembled, they set out for battle. Intuition mounts his chariot and flies off for an aerial view of the rout of Nescience’s armies in Varanasi. In the concluding portion of the act, he offers homage to Vishnu at the chief shrine in the holy city.

      Although Intuition and his forces are now victorious, the war, like that of the “Maha·bharata,” has been waged among siblings. The joy of success, therefore, is dampened by grief at the fate of one’s closest relations, much as it is in the hero Arjuna’s laments in the first canto of the “Bhagavad·gita.” Faith articulates this in the first lines of act five, and hastens to meet Hail Vishnu, to whom she is to report the events of the battle. She finds the goddess in conversation with her daughter, Peace. Joining them, she describes what has taken place.

      After the armies had gathered, Intuition dispatched Reason as his messenger to Nescience, with the ultimatum that ______

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      introduction

      the latter and his party must quit Varanasi or face death in battle. Taking up the challenge, Nescience sends the heresies into action as the first wave of his attack. The goddess Sarasvati appears at the head of Intuition’s army to rally his troops. She is soon joined by Lady Hermeneutics—the Mimansaka philosophy—together with the other schools and traditions that affirm the authority of the Veda. Though they have often been discordant in the past, they are now united by a common purpose. As Faith explains it, all those that are founded in the Vedic revelation partake of the same inner light.

      In the heat of the ensuing combat, the materialist system soon perishes, quickly abandoned by both sides. The surviving heretics are driven to the frontiers. Lust, Anger and the remaining close allies of Nescience are slain in individual combat, while Nescience himself has fled and gone into hiding no-one-knows-where. Thought, the father of both Intuition and Nescience, learning of the demise of so many of his progeny, now grows despondent and contemplates suicide. Once apprised of this, Hail Vishnu dispatches Sarasvati to console him.

      The scene shifts: Thought is bemoaning his losses to Intention, when Sarasvati enters and, after instructing him on the means whereby he might regain his composure, encourages Thought to be reconciled with Dispassion, a son he had abandoned at birth long ago. Father and son joyfully reunite, and Sarasvati, recognizing that Thought cannot remain alone following the loss of his first wife, Eva Lucienne, or active engagement in the world, now confirms his marriage with Diva Lucienne, the process of disengagement. _______

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      introduction

      Having set Thought’s household in its new and proper order, the goddess commands the performance of memorial offerings for their deceased kin.

      Faith and Peace are in dialogue, in the prologue to act six, revealing that, following Thought’s reconciliation with Dispassion, the Inner Man, who is the Supreme Self, is now increasingly coming into his own. Owing to his newfound detachment even Lex has grown quiescent, as there is no longer reason to contemplate consequential actions, whether the goals be good or bad. Nevertheless, the old foe Magnus Nescience has been still able to stir up some trouble: he has managed to conjure up visions of the delectable state called the “Honeyed Realm,” so that the Inner Man was for a while tempted to return to samsara, until Reason entered the scene to snap him out of it. Faith and Peace conclude their discussion, hastening to arrange for Intuition’s meeting at last with Upanishad.

      The Inner Man now sings the praises of Hail Vishnu, when Peace enters with Upanishad. The latter is hesitant to approach, for she recalls that she had been rejected once before and thereafter fell into grave difficulty. Peace objects that the Inner Man was blameless and that it was Nescience whose nefarious schemes had caused Upanishad to be separated from Intuition. She had taken refuge with her daughter Gita, that is, the “Bhagavad·gita,” in order to escape from Reason, a state of affairs that Intuition finds puzzling. All gather before the Inner Man, who honors Upanishad and inquires as to what she had suffered during her prolonged exile.

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      introduction

      Upanishad relates that she first dwelt among foolish persons, who understood nothing of what she had to say. She encountered the traditions of Vedic ritual and thought that she might stay with them, but was able to find only a temporary accommodation based on the mistaken assumption that the Self of which she spoke was the ritual agent. Eventually, these traditions, personified as Sacrificial Science, found her to be a bad influence and so asked her to leave. Meeting then Hermeneutics, the Mimansaka school, her experience with Sacrificial Science was about to be repeated, when the famed Mimansaka teacher Kumarila intervened to introduce the notion of the dual nature of the Self: the aspect of which Upanishad spoke was, he thought, quite distinct from a second dimension, the agent invoked in the ritual traditions. Intuition interrupts her narrative at this point to praise Kumarila’s good sense.

      Upanishad continues her story, recounting her experiences with the philosophical systems of Vaisheshika, Nyaya, and Sankhya, СКАЧАТЬ