The Hero with a Thousand Faces

CHAPTER IV Dissolutions 1. End of the Microcosm

The mighty hero of extraordinary powers — able to lift Mount Govardhan on a finger, and to fill himself with the terrible glory of the universe — is each of us: not the physical self visible in the mirror, but the king within. Kṛṣṇa declares: “I am the Self, seated in the hearts of all creatures. I am the beginning, the middle, and the end of all beings.”^[1] This, precisely, is the sense of the prayers for the dead, at the moment of personal dissolution: that the individual should now return to his pristine knowledge of the world-creative divinity who during life was reflected within his heart.

When he comes to weakness — whether he come to weakness through old age or through disease — this person frees himself from these limbs just as a mango, or a fig, or a berry releases itself from its bond; and he hastens again, according to the entrance and place of origin, back to life. As noblemen, policemen, chariot-drivers, village-heads wait with food, drink, and lodgings for a king who is coming, and cry: “Here he comes! Here he comes!” so indeed do all things wait for him who has this knowledge and cry: “Here is the Imperishable coming! Here is the Imperishable coming!”^[2]

Figure 78. Osiris, Judge of the Dead (papyrus, Egypt, c. 1275 b.c.)

The idea is sounded already in the Coffin Texts of ancient Egypt, where the dead man sings of himself as one with God:

I am Atum, I who was alone;

I am Re at his first appearance.

I am the Great God, self-generator,

Who fashioned his names, lord of gods,

Whom none approaches among the gods.

I was yesterday, I know tomorrow.

The battle-field of the gods was made when I spoke.

I know the name of that Great God who is therein.

“Praise of Re” is his name.

I am that great Phoenix which is in Heliopolis.^[3]

But, as in the death of the Buddha, the power to make a full transit back through the epochs of emanation depends on the character of the man when he was alive. The myths tell of a dangerous journey of the soul, with obstacles to be passed. The Eskimos in Greenland enumerate a boiling kettle, a pelvis bone, a large burning lamp, monster guardians, and two rocks that strike together and open again.^[4] Such elements are standard features of world folklore and heroic legend. We have discussed them above, in our chapters of “The Adventure of the Hero.” They have received their most elaborate and significant development in the mythology of the soul’s last journey.

An Aztec prayer to be said at the deathbed warns the departed of the dangers along the way back to the skeleton god of the dead, Tzontémoc, “He of the Falling Hair.”

Dear child! Thou hast passed through and survived the labors of this life. Now it hath pleased our Lord to carry thee away. For we do not enjoy this world everlastingly, only briefly; our life is like the warming of oneself in the sun. And the Lord hath conferred on us the blessing of knowing and conversing with each other in this existence; but now, at this moment, the god who is called Mictlantecutli, or Aculnahuácatl, or again Tzontémoc, and the goddess known as Mictecacíhuatl, have transported thee away. Thou art brought before His seat; for we all must go there: that place is intended for us all, and it is vast.

We are to have of thee no further recollection. Thou wilt reside in that place most dark, where there is neither light nor window. Thou wilt not return or depart from thence; nor wilt thou think about or concern thyself with the matter of return. Thou wilt be absent from among us for ever more. Poor and orphaned hast thou left thy children, thy grandchildren; nor dost thou know how they will end, how they will pass through the labors of this life. As for ourselves, we shall soon be going there where thou art to be.

The Aztec ancients and officials prepared the body for the funeral, and, when they had properly wrapped it, took a little water and poured it on the head, saying to the deceased: “This thou didst enjoy when thou wert living in the world.” And they took a small jug of water and presented it to him, saying: “Here is something for thy journey”; they set it in the fold of his shroud. Then they wrapped the deceased in his blankets, secured him strongly, and placed before him, one at a time, certain papers that had been prepared: “Lo, with this thou wilt be able to go between the mountains that clash.” “With this thou wilt pass along the road where the serpent watcheth.” “This will satisfy the little green lizard, Xochitónal.” “And behold, with this thou wilt make the transit of the eight deserts of freezing cold.” “Here is that by which thou wilt go across the eight small hills.” “Here is that by which thou wilt survive the wind of the obsidian knives.”

The departed was to take a little dog with him, of bright reddish hair. Around its neck they placed a soft thread of cotton; they killed it and cremated it with the corpse. The departed swam on this small animal when he passed the river of the underworld. And, after four years of passage, he arrived with it before the god, to whom he presented his papers and gifts. Whereupon he was admitted, together with his faithful companion, to the “Ninth Abyss.”^[5]*

The Chinese tell of a crossing of the Fairy Bridge under guidance of the Jade Maiden and the Golden Youth. The Hindus picture a towering firmament of heavens and a many-leveled underworld of hells. The soul gravitates after death to the story appropriate to its relative density, there to digest and assimilate the whole meaning of its past life. When the lesson has been learned, it returns to the world, to prepare itself for the next degree of experience. Thus gradually it makes its way through all the levels of life-value until it has broken past the confines of the cosmic egg. Dante’s Divina Commedia is an exhaustive review of the stages: “Inferno,” the misery of the spirit bound to the prides and actions of the flesh; “Purgatorio,” the process of transmuting fleshly into spiritual experience; “Paradiso,” the degrees of spiritual realization.

A deep and awesome vision of the journey is that of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The man or woman who has died is identified with and actually called Osiris. The texts open with hymns of praise to Re and Osiris and then proceed to the mysteries of the unswathing of the spirit in the world beneath. In the “Chapter of Giving a Mouth to Osiris N.,” we read the phrase: “I rise out of the egg in the hidden land.” (Where N appears the name of the deceased is given; viz., Osiris Aufankh, Osiris Ani.) This is the announcement of the idea of death as a rebirth. Then, in the “Chapter of Opening the Mouth of Osiris N.,” the awakening spirit prays: “May the god Ptah open my mouth, and may the god of my city loose the swathings, even the swathings which are over my mouth.” The “Chapter of Making Osiris N. to Possess Memory in the Underworld” and the “Chapter of Giving a Heart to Osiris N. in the Underworld” carry the process of rebirth two stages further. Then begin the chapters of the dangers that the lone voyager has to face and overcome on his way to the throne of the awesome judge.

The Book of the Dead was buried with the mummy as a guide book to the perils of the difficult way, and chapters were recited at the time of burial. At one stage in the preparation of the mummy, the heart of the dead man was cut open and a basalt scarab in a gold setting, symbolic of the sun, was placed therein with the prayer: “My heart, my mother, my heart, my mother; my heart of transformations.” This is prescribed in the “Chapter of Not Letting the Heart of Osiris N. Be Taken from Him in the Underworld.” Next we read, in the “Chapter of Beating Back the Crocodile”:

Get thee back, O crocodile that dwellest in the west....Get thee back, O crocodile that dwellest in the south....Get thee back, O crocodile that dwellest in the north....The things which are created are in the hollow of my hand, and those which have not yet come into being are in my body. I am clothed and wholly provided with thy magical words, O Re, the which are in heaven above me and in the earth beneath me....

Figure 79. The Serpent Kheti in the Underworld, Consuming with Fire an Enemy of Osiris (carved alabaster, New Kingdom, Egypt, 1278 b.c.)

The “Chapter of Repulsing Serpents” follows, then the “Chapter of Driving Away Apshait.” The soul cries at the latter demon: “Depart from me, O thou who hast lips that gnaw.” In the “Chapter of Driving Back the Two Merti Goddesses” the soul declares its purpose, and protects itself by stating its claim to be the son of the father: “...I shine from the Sektet boat, I am Horus the son of Osi-ris, and I have come to see my father Osiris.” The “Chapter of Living by Air in the Underworld” and the “Chapter of Driving Back the Serpent Rerek in the Underworld” carry the hero still further along his way, and then comes the great proclamation of the “Chapter of Driving Away the Slaughterings Which Are Performed in the Underworld”:

My hair is the hair of Nu. My face is the face of the Disk. My eyes are the eyes of Hathor. My ears are the ears of Apuat. My nose is the nose of Khenti-khas. My lips are the lips of Anpu. My teeth are the teeth of Serget. My neck is the neck of the divine goddess Isis. My hands are the hands of Ba-neb-Tattu. My forearms are the forearms of Neith, the Lady of Sais. My backbone is the backbone of Suti. My phallus is the phallus of Osiris. My loins are the loins of the Lords of Kher-aba. My chest is the chest of the Mighty One of Terror.... There is no member of my body that is not the member of some God. The god Thoth shieldeth my body altogether, and I am Re day by day. I shall not be dragged back by the arms, and none shall lay violent hold upon my hands....

As in the much later Buddhist image of the Bodhisattva within whose nimbus stand five hundred transformed Buddhas, each attended by five hundred Bodhisattvas, and each of these, in turn, by innumerable gods, so here, the soul comes to the fullness of its stature and power through assimilating the deities that formerly had been thought to be separate from and outside of it. They are projections of its own being; and as it returns to its true state they are all reassumed.

In the “Chapter of Snuffing the Air and of Having the Mastery over the Water of the Underworld,” the soul proclaims itself to be the guardian of the cosmic egg: “Hail, thou sycamore-tree of the goddess Nut! Grant thou to me of the water and of the air which dwell in thee. I embrace the throne which is in Hermopolis, and I watch and guard the egg of the Great Cackler. It groweth, I grow; it liveth, I live; it snuffeth the air, I snuff the air, I the Osiris N., in triumph.”

Figure 80. The Doubles of Ani and His Wife Drinking Water in the Other World (papyrus, Ptolemaic, Egypt, c. 240 b.c.)

There follow the “Chapter of Not Letting the Soul of a Man Be Taken from Him in the Underworld” and the “Chapter of Drinking Water in the Underworld and of Not Being Burnt by Fire,” and then we come to the great culmination — the “Chapter of Coming Forth by Day in the Underworld,” wherein the soul and the universal being are known to be one:

I am Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow, and I have the power to be born a second time; I am the divine hidden Soul who createth the gods, and who giveth sepulchral meals unto the denizens of the Underworld of Amentet and of Heaven. I am the rudder of the east, the possessor of two divine faces wherein his beams are seen. I am the lord of the men who are raised up; the lord who cometh forth out of darkness, and whose forms of existence are of the house wherein are the dead. Hail, ye two hawks who are perched upon your resting-places, who harken unto the things which are said by him, who guide the bier to the hidden place, who lead along Re, and who follow him into the uppermost place of the shrine which is in the celestial heights! Hail, lord of the shrine which standeth in the middle of the earth. He is I, and I am he, and Ptah hath covered his sky with crystal....

Thereafter, the soul may range the universe at will, as is shown in the “Chapter of Lifting Up the Feet and of Coming Forth upon the Earth,” the “Chapter of Journeying to Heliopolis and of Receiving a Throne Therein,” the “Chapter of a Man Transforming Himself into Whatever Form He Pleaseth,” the “Chapter of Entering into the Great House,” and the “Chapter of Going into the Presence of the Divine Sovereign Princes of Osiris.” The chapters of the so-called Negative Confession declare the moral purity of the man who has been redeemed: “I have not done iniquity....I have not robbed with violence....I have not done violence to any man....I have not committed theft....I have not slain man or woman....” The book concludes with addresses of praise of the gods, and then: the “Chapter of Living Nigh unto Re,” the “Chapter of Causing a Man to Come Back to See His House upon Earth,” the “Chapter of Making Perfect the Soul,” and the “Chapter of Sailing in the Great Sun-Boat of Re.”^[6] 2. End of the Macrocosm

As the created form of the individual must dissolve, so that of the universe also:

When it is known that after the lapse of a hundred thousand years the cycle is to be renewed, the gods called Loka-byūhas, inhabi­tants of a heaven of sensual pleasure, wander about through the world, with hair let down and flying in the wind, weeping and wiping away their tears with their hands, and with their clothes red and in great disorder. And thus they make announcement:

“Sirs, after the lapse of a hundred thousand years, the cycle is to be renewed; this world will be destroyed; also the mighty ocean will dry up; and this broad earth, and Sumeru, the monarch of the mountains, will be burnt up and destroyed — up to the Brahma-world will the destruction of the world extend. Therefore, sirs, cultivate friendliness; cultivate compassion, joy, and indifference; wait on your mothers; wait on your fathers; and honor your elders among your kinsfolk.”

This is called the Cyclic-Uproar.^[7]

Figure 81. World-end: Rain Serpent and Tiger-claw Goddess (ink on tree-bark paper, Mayan, Central America, c. a.d. 1200–1250)

The Mayan version of the world-end is represented in an illustration covering the last page of the Dresden Codex.^[8] This ancient manuscript records the cycles of the planets and from those deduces calculations of vast cosmic cycles. The serpent numbers which appear toward the close of the text (so-called because of the appearance in them of a serpent symbol) represent world periods of some thirty-four thousand years — twelve and a half million days — and these are recorded again and again.

In these well-nigh inconceivable periods, all the smaller units may be regarded as coming at last to a more or less exact close. What matter a few score years one way or the other in this virtual eternity? Finally, on the last page of the manuscript, is depicted the Destruction of the World, for which the highest numbers have paved the way. Here we see the rain serpent, stretching across the sky, belching forth torrents of water. Great streams of water gush from the sun and moon. The old goddess, she of the tiger claws and forbidding aspect, the malevolent patroness of floods and cloudbursts, overturns the bowl of the heavenly waters. The crossbones, dread symbol of death, decorate her skirt, and a writhing snake crowns her head. Below with downward-pointed spear, symbolic of the universal destruction, the black god stalks abroad, a screeching owl raging on his fearsome head. Here, indeed, is portrayed with graphic touch the final all-engulfing cataclysm.^[9]

Figure 82. Ragnarök: Fenrir the Wolf Devouring Odin (carved stone, Viking, Britain, c. a.d. 1000)

One of the strongest representations appears in the Poetic Edda of the ancient Vikings. Othin (Wotan), the chief of the gods, has asked to know what will be the doom of himself and his pantheon, and the “Wise Woman,” a personification of the World Mother herself, Destiny articulate, lets him hear:^[10]

Brothers shall fight and fell each other,

And sisters’ sons shall kinship stain;

Hard is it on earth, with mighty whoredom;

Ax-time, sword-time, shields are sundered,

Wind-time, wolf-time, ere the world falls;

Nor ever shall men each other spare.

In the land of the giants, Jotunheim, a fair, red rooster shall crow; in Valhalla the rooster Golden Comb; a rust-red bird in Hell. The dog Garm at the cliff-cave, the entrance to the world of the dead, shall open his great jaws and howl. The earth shall tremble, the crags and trees be torn asunder, the sea gush forth upon the land. The fetters of those monsters who were chained back in the beginning shall all burst: Fenris-Wolf shall run free, and advance with lower jaw against the earth, upper against the heavens (“he would gape yet more if there were room for it”); fires shall blaze from his eyes and nostrils. The world-enveloping serpent of the cosmic ocean shall rise in giant wrath and advance beside the wolf upon the land, blowing venom, so that it shall sprinkle all the air and water. Naglfar shall be loosed (the ship made of dead men’s nails) and this shall be the transport of the giants. Another ship shall sail with the inhabitants of hell. And the people of fire shall advance from the south.

When the watchman of the gods shall blow the shrieking horn, the warrior sons of Othin will be summoned to the final battle. From all quarters the gods, giants, demons, dwarfs, and elves will be riding for the field. The World Ash, Yggdrasil, will tremble, and nothing then be without fear in heaven and earth.

Othin shall advance against the wolf, Thor against the serpent, Tyr against the dog — the worst monster of all — and Freyr against Surt, the man of flame. Thor shall slay the serpent, stride ten paces from that spot, and because of the venom blown fall dead to the earth. Othin shall be swallowed by the wolf, and thereafter Vidarr, setting one foot upon the lower jaw, shall take the upper jaw of the wolf in his hand and tear asunder the gullet. Loki shall slay Heimdallr and be slain by him. Surt shall cast fire over the earth and burn all the world.

The sun turns black, earth sinks in the sea,

The hot stars down from heaven are whirled;

Fierce grows the steam and the life-feeding flame,

Till fire leaps high about heaven itself.

Now Garm howls loud before Gnipahellir,

The fetters will burst, and the wolf run free;

Much do I know, and more can see

Of the fate of the gods, the mighty in fight.

This vision of Apocalypse comes to us from the Gospel according to Matthew:

And as Jesus sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world?

And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.

When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains: Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take anything out of his house: Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day: For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.

Then if any man shall say unto you: Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before. Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not. For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For wheresoever the carcase is there will the eagles be gathered together. Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other....But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.^[11]

Footnotes

* White dogs and black cannot swim the river, because the white would say: “I have washed myself!” and the black: “I have soiled myself!” Only the bright reddish ones can pass to the shore of the dead.

Endnotes

[1] Bhagavad Gītā, 10:20.

[2] Bṛhadāranyaka Upaniṣad, 4. 3. 36–37.

[3] James Henry Breasted, Development of Religion and Thought in Egypt (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1912), p. 275. Reprinted by permission of the publishers.

Compare the poem of Taliesin.

[4] Franz Boas, Race, Language, and Culture (New York, 1940), p. 514. See above.

[5] Sahagún, op cit., Lib. I, Apéndice, Cap. i, ed. Robredo, vol. I, pp. 284–86.

[6] Based on the translation by E.A.W. Budge: The Book of the Dead, The Papyrus of Ani, Scribe and Treasurer of the Temples of Egypt, about b.c. 1450 (New York, 1913).

[7] Reprinted by permission of the Harvard University Press from Henry Clarke Warren, Buddhism in Translations, pp. 38–39.

[8] Sylvanus G. Morley, An Introduction to the Study of the Maya Hieroglyphics (57th Bulletin, Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington, D.C., 1915). Plate 3 (facing p. 32).

[9] Ibid., p. 32.

[10] The following account is based on the Poetic Edda, “Voluspa,” pp. 42 ff. (the verses are quoted from the translation by Bellows, op cit., pp. 19–20, 24), and the Prose Edda, “Gylfaginning,” LI (translation by Brodeur, op cit., pp. 77–81). By permission of the American-Scandinavian Foundation, publishers.

[11] Gospel According to Matthew, 24:3–36.