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President: Michael Witzel
(Harvard, Cambridge MA, USA) witzel@fas.harvard.edu Secretary: Boris
Oguibénine (Strasbourg, France, EU) |
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| International
Association for Comparative Mythology (IACM): Second Annual Conference (Ravenstein, Netherlands, 19-21 August 2008) |
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convenors: Eric Venbrux & Wim van Binsbergen
organising committee: Wim van Binsbergen, Eric Venbrux
& Michael Witzel
FINAL PROGRAMME
as
per 15 August 2008
(click here for the compacter CONCISE PROGRAMME, without abstracts)
Final version: The present, final version of
the conference programme lists the final titles of papers but
retains the original abstracts as submitted and accepted in
response to our Call
for Papers; the order of speakers is
indicated, as well as chairpersons and discussants. A hyperlinked
paper title gives access to a PDF or ppr of the paper as
available to date; when no hyperlink appears, this means that the
paper has not been received yet.
Proposed format for each paper in Sessions II-III-IV: total time available 45 minutes per paper, of which only ca. 10-15 minutes presentation (assuming that the paper has been made available beforehand and has been read), only 5-10 minutes discussion by formal discussant, and remainder for general discussion.
Proposed format for each paper in Session V ('Work in Progress'): total time available 30 minutes per speaker, of which ca. 10-15 minutes presentation (assuming that the paper has been made available beforehand and has been read), 5-10 minutes discussion by formal discussant, and the remainder for general discussion.
Discussants have been selected at very short notice, and even though the papers have been pre-circulated (again with only a narrow time margin), no in-depth, authoritative and exceptionally well-documented statement is really expected -- rather the convenors see the discussant's role as suggesting the first few salient points for a constructive general discussion.
Chairpersons should primarily be occupied with time-keeping. This is a high and honourable responsibility in itself. Our choice of conference format is informed by the desire to have 'endless discussions' -- hence the pre-circulated papers and the discussants, but this format will only work if chairpersons firmly insist that both paper-givers and discussants do not exceed their allotted time (see above). Needless to say that, beyond time-keeping, a chairperson is expected to monitor the discussion, to ensure that it is not monopolised, to bring up important points that may otherwise escape attention, to fuel the discussion in the unlikely case that it would threaten to stagnate, and to use, in whatever other way, her or his prerogatives so as to further incisive but constructive debate
Participants are reminded that the
conference fee of EUR€100 / US$150 and the IACM fee of US$35 / EUR€23 are to be paid in cash at
registration; we regret that cheques, credit card or bank drafts
cannot be accepted.
The moon figures prominently in various Australian Aboriginal myths about the origin of death. In these myths an ancesteral being dies and another being, the moon, offers to revive the first dead ever. The offer, however, is refused. Hence, death has come to the world. The myth of the cultural hero Purukupali and his brother Tapara from Bathurst and Melville Islands, northern Australia, is a case in point:
Towards the end of the creation period Purukupali introduced death into Tiwi society. Purukupali fought with his younger maternal brother, Tapara, after the latter had seduced Purukupali’s wife and her son had died as a result of neglect. Tapara offered to bring the child back to life but Purukupali refused the offer and said that because of his son had died all people had to die. In his fight Tapara injured Purukupali’s leg with a forked throwing club. Tapara was hurt above the eye, and transformed into the moon. Every month the scar left by the injury above the eye still can be seen on the moon. In one version of the myth Purukupali’s baby, Djinani, dies of starvation; in another he dies of thirst due to having been left in the hot sun, while Tapara and Purukupali’s wife Bima were having sex in the bushes. Bima was grief-stricken: her wailing sounds can still be heard, because she turned into Waijai, the curlew. Whereas Tapara might be seen as a symbol of regeneration; think of the waning and waxing of the moon, and Tapara’s promise to bring Purukupali’s dead son (Djinani) back to life within three days, Purukupali issued death: as his son had died, he said, all people would have to die.
In this paper I will compare Aboriginal myths involving death and the moon, as recorded by a number of ethnographers in the respective hunter-gatherer societies across Australia, that have the refusal of a regeneration to life as their theme. These myths may belong to the oldest intangible cultural heritage of humankind.
Myths in African traditional religions (plural intended!) often have an ambivalent relation both to the rituals in those religions and to the conceptions of the ‘other world.’ For one part the principal rituals seem to bear little relation to the main body of myth, on the other hand some or many of the main supernatural agents do not feature in the myths at all. This relative cultural autonomy of myths is reflected in the issues the myths address among which etiology seems to be of a lesser concern. This dynamic will be viewed in the myths on death and dying in some West African societies. Here, questions of ultimate origin do not feature, neither of creation nor of death, but the mythical atention is more of an intermediate nature, more protohistorical than purely mythical. Thus, one of the glaring absences, in some cases, is any explanation of death’s origin, while the focus is either on avoiding the discourse on death and dying, or on the battle against death: how to avoid dying, and why man’s ultimate inability to do so. The comparative data stem from own research (Kapsiki, North Cameroon) and Dogon (Mali) as the core of a wider West African comparison.
This paper reconstructs some aspects of the Indo-European mythology related to death, the journey to the netherworld, and the process of dying and returning from the world of the dead. Particularly, we compare and contrast a series of Old Indian (Vedic), Indo-Iranian, Old Slavic, and Baltic myths and burial rituals. We isolate the mythological motif of a path to the netherworld (the world of the dead or ancestors), e.g. crossing the waters, going over fire, ascending a tree, descending into a well, etc. The motif of a path is compared and contrasted with the motif of a mythological character that undertakes a journey to the netherworld, completes it, and returns back to the world of the living.
In Indo-Iranian and Old Slavic traditions, there is a number of myths and folktales that have a character whose name usually means ‘the Third’ (for example, Slavic Tret’yak) who goes to or finds himself in the netherworld (the third kingdom), overcomes a variety of obstacles (sometimes escaping three inevitable deaths), miraculously returns to the living, reestablishes the connection between the three worlds (netherworld, heaven, and earth), and thus recreates the tripartite Universe.
The aforementioned Indo-European motifs find their continuation in Buddhist soteriological myths. The latter are structured as a sequence of motifs: to exist in the world of the living -- to die having reached the limit of life in due course -- to be reborn by overcoming obstacles.
We also draw upon Old Slavic mythological
motifs of ‘right’ (literally, ‘someone’s own,
not forced upon the one who is dying’) and ‘wrong’
(literally, ‘someone else’s, not belonging to the one
who is dying’) deaths. Colloquially, the ‘right’
death (‘someone’s own’) means a death of natural
causes, but in myth it acquires an additional ethical facet of
fulfilling someone’s role in this world (e.g. a heroic
death, however violent or ‘unnatural’, is not
‘wrong’). The ‘right’ death is (or should be)
followed by the right funeral ritual in which the motif of
journey to the netherworld along a path with obstacles plays an
important role. The ‘wrong’ death can in certain cases
be overcome by a right ritual helping the dead receive their
share (Russian dolya, Sanskrit bhaga, etc.), prevail over
obstacles during the journey, and become proper ancestors, not
the living undead. The Slavic motifs of ‘right’ and
‘wrong’ deaths are compared with their counterparts in
Indian, Iranian, and Baltic traditions, and the comparison is
used to reconstruct major features of the Indo-European mythology
of death.
In spite of that the Indian and Iranian traditions are close, as regards to death, even the common motives and subjects (such as the story of Yama/Yima, the chthonic dogs) appear in a rather different way in Zoroastrianism. So, Iranian Yima, as we can see starting with the Avestan Videvdat, unlike Indian Yama, is neither the first mortal, nor the King of the dead. In fact, Yima is not concerned with death, but on contrary is, like Noah, a savior of righteous people from it.
As to the Zoroastrian dogs, unlike the Indian dogs of Yama, Iranian ones don’t look for people to whom is predetermined to die, but accompany Daena, the personal belief who leads immortal souls to the other world. Thus, at least in mythology (and not in the ritual practice), sacred dogs are removed from the dying and dead to avoid a contact with the contamination of death.
The distance separating these characters from death in Zoroastrianism could be explained from the idea of death as the greatest defilement, which is ‘infectious’ and can infect with death all good creations. Therefore it’s undesirable for heroes, deities and holy creations to be in any contact with death. Partly this idea is close to many religions, but it became an ‘idee fixe’ in Zoroastrianism, overriding some mythological motives and ritual practices.
The Avestan Videvdat is devoted mainly to the driving away a demoness of death and decay Druxsh-ya-Nasu (lit. ‘Lie which is Corpse’), which comes in the form of a fly, flying from the North, the direction of hell. Although several names of demons specializing in different aspects of death are known in the Avesta, this one is the principal in the Videvdat. She attacks a dead body and penetrates it through its 9 holes. This pollution infects with death those around and for the purification some rites are needed, connected with isolation and repeated ablutions.
On the one hand, the isolation of the ‘infected’ with death who has to be purified, as it depicted in Videvdat, typological and in ritual practice is very close to the testing of a candidate during initiation (and the place of isolation is like a grave, a cave, a womb and so on). In the same manner the sinner is isolated, who carried a corpse alone (he becomes a ‘container’ of Druxsh-ya-Nasu). They let him to reach the old age out of the community and then kill him ritually. The custom of isolation of a dying person (who is dying always because he is infected with death) has continued among Tajiks till our days in the foothills of Pamirs. They leave the dying alone in a special building, sometimes for several days without any care, waiting for his death. At the same time the idea of the infecting ‘blackness’ of death is widespread among the Iranian peoples.
On the other hand, the Zoroastrian system of ritual ablutions, which are fulfilled in the direction from N to S during 9 nights and days in 9 holes (probably, the most ancient variant of this ritual was discovered by Sarianidi in 2007 in Gonur (BMAK); this could, maybe, along with the NE (?) image of the fly-contamination help to understand some differences in the Iranian and Indian myth and ritual) with the purpose of driving away pollution and death, repeats, as it was noted by some scholars, the very rhythm of the liturgy. The 9 holes (as well as 9 nights and days) associate with 9 rivers of the Iranian world picture, 9 holes of human body and so on. This shows a correlation of microcosm and macrocosm, which both are purified from death and pollution.
The Rök Stone (Östergötland, Sweden, 801-c. 850) bears the longest of all runic inscriptions and one of the most fruitful for our understanding of the pre-Christian mythology of Scandinavia. While it is true that almost everything about the inscription is controversial, I am confident that my series of recent articles form an adequately secure basis for the interpretation of Rök's mythology and beliefs on the subject of death. The talk will situate Rök among various Germanic mythologies of death more generally, with special attention to the Baldr myth, in particular to the Baldr-figure's slayer, designated a iatunn in this text. Some effort at wider, extra-Germanic comparisons will be made, centered principally on this demonic figure.
Among cosmogonic tales, the Emergence of the first people from the underworld (further: EP) and the Earth-diver are spread across by far the largest areas of the globe. These tales seem to be initially connected with different cultural traditions. The EP is typical for sub-Saharan Africa, Indo-Pacific borderlands of Asia, Australia and Melanesia, South and Central America, southern part of North America. Stories in question tell how people of all sexes and ages come out of the ground, rock, tree trunk, etc. and spread across the earth. These stories should not be mixed up with tales about emergence of the primeval couple (the latter are also predominantly characteristic for the Indo-Pacific world but are less specific). The EP is unknown in Northern and Central Eurasia besides few texts (Nganasan, Selkup) which speak about people growing out of the ground ‘like grass’. In sub-Saharan Africa the EP is the only widespread anthropogenic myth and it can well form part of the primeval mythology known to the first people migrated out of Africa. In South and South-East Asia the EP probably acquired additional details which were later brought to the Americas by the first migrants. 1) People who come out of their original enclosure are menaced by monster (in Asia: Lushei, Wa, Kond; in America: Seneca, Arikara, Lipan, Murato, Witoto, Wanka, Yurakare, Yabuti, Kamaiura, Toba, Kaduveo). 2) The way from one part of the universe into another leads though a narrow opening; certain person or creature sticks in it broking for ever the communication between the worlds (in Asia: Kond, Moi, Ma, Sre, Banhar, Visaya, Paivan; in America: Kiowa, Caddo, Seminole, Yaruro, Warao, Karińa, Shuar, Mai Huna, Witoto, Surui, Gaviăo, Zoro, Paresi, Caraja, Angaite, Mataco). 3) When people come from the underworld, the two-headed creature sticks in the opening or is prevented from coming to earth (in New Guinea and Asia: Medjprat, Moi, Ma, Sre, Banhar; in America: Mandan, Angaite). The areas of EP and the Earth-diver myths only slightly overlap along their contact zones in North America and North-East India. The Earth-diver is typical for Northern and Central Eurasia and for North America (mostly northern and central areas of the continent), the American and the Asian versions having the same basic structure. This tale probably emerged in South-Central Asia, elaborated in Southern Siberia and then brought to the New World in Terminal Pleistocene. The differentiation of its American variants took part on the place. In Terminal Pleistocene – Early Holocene the bearers of the Agate Basin tradition were probably familiar with this myth and brought it across American Subarctic.
Customs and traditions continue to be an invaluable source of information for historians of the African past. A vast amount of information and explanations on complex African issues can be found in these aspects of African culture. This paper deals with the Ife-Modakeke conflict, especially the determination of the main contending issue in the conflict i.e. the determination of whether Modakeke was established as a ward in Ile-Ife or a separate town entire of Ile-Ife. It examines the function of Yoruba customs and traditions in the reconstruction of the intention of Ooni Abeweila, the Ife king that established Modakeke, and the various interpretations given his intentions during and after his reign. The paper analyzes the kind of information and explanations cultural practices like Ogun-Pipin, (inheritance sharing), Ile-Mimu, (division or sharing of lands among family members) Oko-Yiya, (division or sharing of farmland among family members), Ise-Yiya (division or sharing of occupation among family members), etc, could offer when the event that led to the establishment of Modakeke occurred, and in secondary sources, on the Ife-Modakeke conflicts of the later days. Finally, the paper considers the kinds of questions historians must ask in order to make customs and traditions useful tools in explaining, reconstructing, and understanding a people’s past.
Twenty years ago, after earlier work on historical reconstruction in the field of North African popular Islam and Central African precolonial religious forms, I edited Likota lya Bankoya, a collection of oral traditions of the Nkoya people of Zambia, compiled and reworked by the first local Christian minister. Soon this was followed by my analytical study Tears of Rain: Ethnicity and history in Central Western Zambia, a reconstruction of half a millennium of state formation in the region, based on a close reading of these worked-up traditions against the combined background of: relatively unprocessed ones I had collected in the region in the course of two decades; the existing historical and theoretical literature; and my own background as a long-standing participant observer in Nkoya village life and regional traditional politics. The focus was proto-historical (not a single written text existed on the area older than 200 years) and regional. Further exposure to Assyriology, Egyptology and comparative mythology in the first half of the 1990s, however, made me realise that what I had considered to be an distorted traditional account of historical events in Iron Age Central Africa up to half a millennium BP, contained many highly specific parallels with the mythologies attested in the texts of civilisations extremely remote in space and time from Nkoyaland; e.g. several pivotal mythological references to one of the Ancient Egyptian royal titles, nswt-bit, ‘The One of the Reed and the Bee’. So I had to face the possibility that my historical reconstruction, however acclaimed by the dean of Central African protohistory Jan Vansina, was yet largely fictitious. (Meanwhile a similar objection has been brought in again the work of Matthew Schoffeleers, who has engaged in similar proto-historical research in Malawi.)
But how could these mythological fragments have ended up in a Central African backwater, thousands of kilometres and thousands of years away from their attestations in the Ancient Near East and the Eastern Mediterranean? Over the years (planning, drafting and rejecting more versions of a scheduled book Global Bee Flight than I care to count) I have considered a number of possible explanations:
Reviewing the Nkoya evidence in some detail, the proposed paper’s argument will show that all these (apparently incompatible, but possibly complementary) approaches have a partial truth on their side, and that none gives a full and convincing answer. I will try to make a step forward by reconsidering the seething of linguistic, genetic and cultural innovation in West Asia in the Early Neolithic, c. 12 ka BP. In the process not only the essential continuity between African and Eurasian mythologies will be established in detail at the descriptive level, but also the causes of that continuity will be identified.
Mythological compendia and indexes such as that by Stith Thompson create the impression that flood myths are rare in Africa and Australia. Erroneously, I too thought so in my short summary of Laurasian mythology (2001).
A closer look at the worldwide distribution of flood myths tells differently. While they are fairly widespread in the Laurasian Area (Eurasia, Polynesia, the Americas), they are by no means absent from what I like to call the Gondwana belt (sub-Saharan Africa, New Guinea/Melanesia, Australia).
The hundreds of recorded flood myths from both areas can be classified into a few major types, region per region. A comparison of the Australian and African versions indicates a strong overlap that goes back to the time of the exodus from Africa, some 60,000 years ago. The Eurasian-American versions are more narrowly confined to a few basic types that can be traced back to the emergence of Laurasian mythology. However, the Laurasian types clearly emerge from the earlier Gondwana prototype. In sum, the flood myth is an ancient inheritance of human mythology. It is part of a very old core of myths connected with the emergence of humans and their early, evil ways – surprisingly echoing the Mesopotamian and Biblical accounts in many respects.
Whether this myth has taken shape among the bottleneck population along the shores of E.Africa or even before, in the mind of the ‘African Eve,’ must remain moot, just as the psychological reason for its invention and formulation, which is a topic to be investigated by the study of the human brain and its productions.
Comparison of classical Japanese mythology and mythologies of various other Eurasian countries have been conducted by many eminent scholars: In Japan, by late Taryo Obayashi(n.1), Atsuhiko Yoshida(n.2), and Hitoshi Yamada (n.3); in Europe, by late Nelly Naumann(n.4); and in the United StatesbyMichael Witzel.(n.5) After introducing the contributions of these scholars, I indicate a connecting threadsto the following topics of classical mythology and historyof Japanusually discussed separately; Jomon clay figurines; Flood myth and incest; the World Parent Izanagi and Izanami; Sun Goddess Amaterasu and her brother Susanowo; the Hidden Sun motif; Amaterasu as a Virgin Mother Goddess; Himiko, the Queen of Yamatai Kingdom; Hime-hikoruling system; Onari-kamiin southern islands of Okinawa; male-femaleleaders of Japanese new religions.(n.6) As I mentioned, parallelexamples of these motifs could be found not only in China, but in Taiwan, Siberia, Mongolia, Oceania, Southeast Asia, and even in North America. Tracing the origin of motifs is brilliantly conducted by scholars mentioned above. What I am intending here is slightly different. I ammore interested in transformation: how various motifs coming from abroad were organized as classical Japanese cultural system of which mythology is an important element; whatwas the core of the idea. In my opinion, these topics could be classified into following categories: 1. Brother-sister marriage: Izanagi and Izanami; Flood myth and incest; Amaterasu and Susanowo. 2. Brother-sister antagonism: the Hidden Sun motif. 3. Brother-sister rulership: Himiko; Hime-hiko system; Onari-kami in Okinawa; male-female leaders of new religions. 4. Mother-Son deities (n.7)and/orVirgin Mother Goddess: Amaterasu andHono-ninigi; Athena and Erichthonios; Mary and Jesus. 5. Corn mother: Amaterasu and Hono-ninigi. What is most notable is the brother-sister combination. This combination is both separation and integration of two spheres: sacred and profane(or secular). Mother-son combination is also prominent and shows the same combination. These two categories may indicate a strong female principle active in Japan through ages. As the cases of Athena and Mary show, however, this combination of sacred (female) and profane (male) is not limited to Japan; it could occur in other Eurasian mythologies under certain conditions.
Notes
1.On Obayashi, H.-J. Paproth and H. Yamada, Zeitschrift f. Ethnologie 127(2002). 2. ‘Japanese Mythology and the Indo-European Trifunctional System’Diogenes 98(1977) 3.’Mythology of the Taiwan Aborigines’, presented at Harvard&Peking UniversityInternational Conference on Comparative Mythology, May 2006. 4. Japanese Prehistory, Otto Harrassowitz, 2000. See also my review of Naumann’s works in Religious Studies Review32(2006). 5. ‘Vala and Iwato’, Electric J. of Vedic Studies 12(2005). 6. My previous papers concerning the topic are: ‘Birds as Symbols of the Realm of the Sacred in Japanese Myth’; ‘Alone among Women’;’The Koki Story and the Femininity of the Foundress of Tenrikyo’;’Ancient Japan and Religion’ 6.Ei’ichiro Ishida, ‘Mother-Son Deities’, History of Religion 4(1964)
I think now is the time to stress that I have a new theory of myth which I can call the cosmological theory. I have been much inclined to credit my predecessors and this may sometimes have resulted in the impression that what I am saying is not new. But it is, and it is important for our understanding of modern people as well as ancient culture. I have learnt much from predecessors and it is inconceivable that I could have usefully approached a work of this scale without them, but when I look at their oevres as a whole, I can see that I have drawn on one aspect of their work, and often quite a small one. I do not carry over the baggage from their whole theory but merely had my ideas sparked by one element of what they were saying. So to understand what I am saying it is unnecessary and irrelevant to grip the whole life work of the often voluminous scholars of the twentieth century. Let us make a fresh start with the twenty-first century, and a new millennium, and listen directly to the evidence from the past (and even sometimes from the present) and build, build, build, as we need to do if we want to turn over in our hands the intricate structure from which our mythic heritage stems. I plan to lay out a set of core particulars during my presentation. If other scholars find that they have ideas that overlap with mine, let them build them in or use them to modify or refute parts of the structure. The cosmological theory of myth depends on the concept that an oral society was fused together in a different way from a literate one, and that all our written evidence by definition is flawed. Although we naturally need to use written evidence for the vanished past we need also to create models of what kind of society could have operated the systems that can be postulated on the basis of the surviving evidence. The model is at once conceptual and social; it has static elements relating to place and dynamic elements relating to time and also to the narratives unfolding in time that are our myths. Comparison is one of the means to understanding. and the results of one comparison will give rise to formulations that can be explored and tested through other comparisons. We have the world before us as we set out on our enquiries.
Older studies of comparative mythology were notorious for their untestable theories, uncontrolled use of evidence, and in popular forms (e.g., in Eliade, Jung, or Campbell) frequent overlaps with religious or ‘spiritual’ ideologies. These tendencies sharply limit the use of those studies as adjuncts of genetics, linguistics, and archaeology in attempts to reconstruct human prehistory. Continuing problems in the field (cf. Farmer 2007) include massive contamination by foreign or ‘worked up’ data in the stratified texts often mistaken for reliable sources of ancient myths; failures to distinguish similar myths deriving from parallel evolutionary processes from those involving transmissions or common descent; and overreliance on computer data bases and handbooks of myths that draw on sources of uneven quality, under or over-report data from different regions, or juxtapose superficially related myths from distant periods.
Due to expanding global contacts, awareness of these problems has improved in the last half decade; and this in turn has encouraged attempts to reconstruct prehistoric myths using more rigorous methods aligned with those of comparative linguistics and genetics (Witzel, Origins, in press). In the same period, advances in brain-culture studies have allowed the creation of the first testable models of the origins of myth. All these developments, combined with expanding use of computer simulations, suggest that the time is ripe to reinvent comparative mythology as a rigorous science that generates predictive and falsifiable models.
The paper begins with an overview of recent developments in the field; it then focuses on brain-culture studies that allow us to build testable models of the origins of myth and its later transformations in textual traditions (Farmer, Brains and History, in preparation). In brief, the paper details how massive social biases in perception detectable at birth are elaborated during development in topographic or correlative brain maps, the grounds of all analogical thinking, eventually giving birth to the models of the so-called social brain required for us to function as cultural beings. Evidence is reviewed that in default mode these models are systematically overextended into the exterior world, giving birth to the exaggerated anthropomorphism of early myth and religion.
One surprise of the model is its ability to make the first testable predictions about the antiquity of these primitive cognitive states. cAs corollaries of normal brain development, and not as cultural inventions, on the model there are reasons to predict that anthropomorphic modeling is older even than the anatomically modern brain, placing it well before ca. 200,000 BP.
The paper discusses tests of these ideas in comparative neurobiology, studies of hyper-anthropomorphizing subjects with one rare form of synesthesia, and (at the other extreme) of hypo-anthropomorphizing subjects with developmental disorders including Asperger’s syndrome. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of brain-culture mechanisms that led to the attenuation of anthropomorphism in early textual traditions, leading (in ways that can be simulated in computer models) to many familiar scholastic structures associated with the world’s major religious and philosophical systems.
(Note: for the actual paper, the author has been asked to concentrate on the second part of this paper proposal)
There are currently four positions on the comparative method in the study of myth.
At one extreme lies the postmodern position, which spurns comparison altogether. In light of the postmodernist focus on the unique, the eccentric, the exotic, the marginal, the neglected, and the excluded, the ‘modernist’ concern with the general is anathema. The assumptions here are that the comparative method seeks only similarities, that similarities deny differences, that similarities take the items compared out of context, that similarity means identity, that similarities are invariably superficial, and that similarities are ineluctably invidious.
The second position, less radical and much older, allows for comparisons, but on only a regional or local rather than worldwide scale. The comparisons permitted are called ‘controlled’ comparisons. This kind of comparativism regularly takes place among, for example, Indo-Europeanists.
A third, more recent position allows anew for universal comparisons, but only when differences as well as similarities are sought. This position, which dubs itself the ‘new comparativism,’ assumes that older comparativism--though not, as with the first two positions, comparison per se--seeks only similarities, that similarities exclusively are invariably superficial, and that similarities exclusively are unavoidably invidious.s
The fourth and final position is that of ‘old comparativism,’ or what used to be called simply ‘The Comparative Method.’ Here comparisons are universal, and the quest can, though not must, be for sheer similarities. The exemplar of old comparativism is J. G. Frazer. Old, or traditional, comparativism would spurn the criticisms of the other three positions. The criticisms, it would be said, do not apply even to Frazer.
Elsewhere I have defended the comparative method against the assumptions made by controlled comparativists and by new comparativists: that the only proper similarities are regional rather than universal (controlled comparativism) and that differences are more important than similarities (new comparativism). I have enlisted the grand case of William Robertson Smith both to show that regional comparisons are not at odds with universal ones and to show that the quest for similarities is not at odds with the quest for differences. I have argued that Smith is entitled to give equal weight to similarities and differences.
Now I want to defend the comparative method against the much stronger assumption made by postmodernists: that the quest for similarities is in itself objectionable. I have previously enlisted J. G. Frazer in defense of old comparativism against controlled comparativism and new comparativism. Now I want to enlist him anew in defense of old comparativism against postmodernism. I will be arguing that Frazer is entitled to seek similarities exclusively and to give no weight to differences. I will be asserting postmodern objections to the quest for sheer similarities evince a misunderstanding about the nature of knowledge.
Whether myths and mythologies are essential to our humanity, or whether they are features which account for the persistence of ``self-inflicted immaturity’’, are questions which cannot be answered by a simple `yes’ or `no’. But since these questions and their assumptions affect all aspects of being human and cultural, they require an understanding of myth which comprises the positive as well as the negative features of mythological expressions and processes. Even if the study of myths and mythologies should be no more than an investigation of irrationalities, it will be necessary to come to a – by intention – complete understanding of myth and to approach relevant phenomena in the light of theories which are as adequate as possible. But since we cannot exclude the possibility that myths and mythologies are indispensable conditions of practice and theory, it will be necessary to consider this possibility and to develop our theories accordingly.
Since I assume that the distinction between myth and reason is a precondition for the emergence of philosophy and scholarship, I would like to argue that philosophy as well as scholarship have to be careful about their relationship with myth, especially if we agree with Aristotle that knowledge and understanding are, indeed, the subject matter of philosophy (Aristotle, Metaphics Bk XII, 9, 1075a).
In order to comply with the demands of an open – and in principle comprehensive – understanding of myths and mythologies, I begin with some reflections on what it means, or could mean, to be rational about myth. Next, I would like to focus on several observations in connection with myths and mythologies. Since these observations provide a strong motive to take up the question about an adequate concept of myth, I shall discuss this point in a following step. And, because the effort to come to grips with myth on a conceptual level cannot be separated from interests in studying myth, I intend to round off these explorations with a few words about this aspect of mythological studies.
Though I am convinced that the understanding of myth is a necessary requirement for the development of theoretical reasoning, I do not intend to elaborate this point. But I do hope that the thoughts I present are sufficient to arouse interest in the correlation between myth and thinking, and strong enough to initiate further reflections on the mythic conditions of philosophy and the formation of theories.
Indo-European languages have received an enormous amount of comparative study, for which Greek and Sanskrit (with Latin) are often regarded as the fundamental pillars. One might expect, then, that the comparison between Greek and Sanskrit epic would be well advanced and that by now some consensus would have been reached on the question of how much, if any, of their narrative content goes back to a comon origin in early Indo-European times. However, this is not the case, and in practice most students of one epic simply proceed as if they could take for granted that the other was of no relevance or interest to them.
After a brief mention of various other reasons for this unsatisfactory situation, I focus here on the apparent differences in modes of involvement of gods in the struggles of mortals. A typology of such modes in Homer might include gods who father warriors, gods who fight mortals or intervene in their fights (violently, or with material help, or with advice), and gods who fight other gods in the course of human battles. Examples of all these modes can in fact be found in the Mahabharata, though not necessarily in the great eighteeen-day war that forms the centrepiece of the epic. For instance, the best example of gods fighting gods comes in the episode of the Khandava Forest Fire (Book 1), where Agni (= Fire), assisted by Arjuna, opposes Indra (here = rain, i.e. water). The comparison is with Iliad book 21, where Hephaestus (here = fire), assisting Achilles, opposes the river Scamander. The rapprochement involves not only the elements, and several deities other than those mentioned, but also many details, including some similes.
The similarities are naturally acompanied by many differences (context, course of events, personnel, motivation...), and the major theoretical issue is how one can attempt to demonstrate that the traditions are in fact cognate and derive from an early common origin. The aim here is not so much to contribute to an understanding of the two epics, but rather, in a case where the prehistory is somewhat less long and obscure than in many cases studied by comparativists, to give a convincing example of how much can be preserved by oral tradition over a period of the order of two millennia.
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In today’s era of globalization and intercultural encounter studies of indigenous mythologies seek a comparative comprehension of human civilizations, highlighting the interconnection of contemporary global life. One form in which mythology can manifest itself is as a narrative form depicting how life began and where it is heading, thus illuminating the spiral process of life as locally understood. Such narrative form implies a pilgrim or a person to be the heroic figure who carries out his/her life. This is the kind of mythology that is told at the Sundanese site of Nagara Padang, West Java, which presumably goes back to the pre-Hinduism and Buddhism era in the Indonesian Archipelago.
In a way reminiscent of the famous Central Java site of Borobodur, but lacking any of the sculptural mediation so central there, the alleged tomb of the sacred, semi-mythical King of the Sundanese kingdom of Pajajaran (12th c. CE), Prabu Silihwangi, expresses this mythological narrative form of life through 17 stages, 15 of which are marked by huge rocks up in the uninhabited area above the Rawabogo desa. Each stage has its name and proper meaning which relates to a conception of the spiral cycle of Life. The latter is suggestive of harmony between the local indigenous beliefs, Hinduism/Buddhism, and Sufic/Islamic teaching of spiritual journey.
The spiritual journey begins with a childhood phase, followed by an adulthood phase extolling indigenous noble virtues and principal attitudes for everyday life such as: silihwangi (intersubjective dignification), ‘welas asih’ (compassion), ‘sapajajaran’ (equality), ‘nuhunkeun’ (gratitude), and ‘kaadilan’ (justice); and the phase of sagacity in which the self expresses these indigenous noble virtues as the essence of true (or affirmative) life.
After dealing at some length with the specific mythological narratives attaching to the site and its individual stages, we are ready to probe into the underlying meaning, which is already articulated, to a considerable extent, in the conscious interpretation proferred by the shrine keeping family. This mythological narrative of life hinges on the worldview of Tritangtu, the tripartite structure by which Life is maintained. This triadic structure consists of three ontological subjects: The Almighty (or the True Self), The Universe, and the Self (human being). These tripartite subjects illustrate an ontological accounts, notably the moment of ‘Becoming-One’. This indigenous harmony combined with Hinduism/Buddhism and Sufic/Islamic spiritual beliefs defines for each subject a position in the middle of the tripartite structure, in such a way that each subject emerges as a luminous intermediary of all other subjects. A subject radiates the power of ordering and nurturing Life. Such power then is an expression of the affirmative power to maintain Life. This spiritual harmonious moment of unification in life is the epistemic foundation for the affirmative life expressed in the noble virtues, principal attitude above. The Self mediates the Almighty’s power to order and nurture the universe. Simultaneously, the Universe mediates between the Self and the Almighty. The Almighty itself then delegates its power of ordering and nurturing for the Self and the universe so that both subjects should complete each other.
While this sums up the Sunda’s ontological and epistemic narrative form for thinking cosmological interconnectedness, as a final step this paper proposes to apply this Sunda paradigm to the present-day interplay of civilizations in our globalizing world. This means thinking and implementing mythical and mystical triadic subjects such as articulate middle-ness, intermediary subjects; and ethical noble virtues and behavioral principles such as silihwangi (inter-subjective dignification), welas asih (compassion), sapajajaran (inter-subjective equality), nuhunkeun (gratitude) and adil (just) for today’s inter-civilization encounters. For this purpose, the indigenous account will be examined from the point of view of Deleuze’s accounts of affirmation of life, his theory of rhizomic inter-subjective encounters and his view of the plane of immanence, as the virtual domain of interconnectivity for our contemporary civilizations.
Dealing with Greek mythology, one inevitably encounters the problem of the ambiguous treatment of the Olympic pantheon. It seems that for the Greeks, the gods could be both the object of sincere reverence and the source of ironic laughter. This apparent paradox is especially striking in the epics of Homer, where solemn veneration can in a few verses turn into mockery, and vice versa. To rationalise this ambiguity, classical scholars have often attempted to artificially separate these two attitudes by ascribing them to different authors, ages or poetic registers. This point of departure, however, was motivated by the expectations of a monotheistic and thus anachronistic model they enforced upon Greek mythology.
I want to argue that these seemingly incompatible attitudes are two sides of the same coin, and that this ironic streak of Greek mythology is inherent to its function.
For this hypothesis, I base myself on the theories of Hans Blumenberg. This philosopher and classical philologist approached myth not as a particular archaic genre, but as a continuous process of symbolisation that enables man to reduce what he called the ‘absolutism of reality’ (Wirklichkeitsabsolutismus). This liminal concept refers to a condition of being totally overwhelmed by the undifferentiated threat of the outside world. The polytheistic pantheon and the stories that surround it are considered to be the primitive means by which man succeeded to differentiate this threat, and thus to restrict it. Mediated by myth, the absolutism of reality becomes both sublime and manageable. Irony forms a part of this process.
To concretise and illustrate these theories, I will apply them to some excerpts from the Homeric epics wherein the gods are depicted in an ironical way: the battle of the gods (Il. XX), the story about the entrapment of Aphrodite and Ares by Hephaestus (Od. 8.266-369), and, in particular, the beguilement of Zeus by Hera (Il. XIV).
Matthias Hermanns describes in his comprehensive study of the Gesar epic (Das National-Epos der Tibeter gLing König Ge sar, 1965) the heroic deeds of the divine king Gesar. One of the narratives, developed in the region of Amdo (eastern Tibet), tells how Gesar journeys to hell to rescue his wife A-stag lha-mo.
Gesar’s travel to hell starts with a
battle against China. A-stag lha-mo, one of
Gesar’s wives and the former wife of the king of the demons
of the north, dies during his absence. Lha-mo goes to the
underworld and arrives at the place where she meets the judge of
hell, who will determine whether she will go to hell or somewhere
else. When Gesar hears her whereabouts, he follows his wife to
the judge of hell. Gesar forces the judge to dismiss his wife and
then he liberates and guides her through all the regions of hell.
He plans to send Lha-mo to the celestial fields. In this part of
the epic, surreal Buddhist representations of hell are pictured.
Here we can see the influence of the Lamaism. The tortures
and vexations that monks and lama’s of the Yellow Hat sect
have to undergo for their evil, moral offences are described.
Nuns also undergo terrible pains. A Buddhist conception is that
redeeming bodhisattva’s have to save the damned from hell.
In the epic it is the hero Gesar who plays this part.
Gesar’s destiny as a redeemer is made clear since he and not
a compassionate bodhisattva does the redeeming.
There are parallels between Gesar’s
achievement of liberation and enlightenment and the traditional
role that the lama plays in supporting the dying. I will
compare in my study (still in the beginning) parallels between
Gesar’s travel to the hell-realm and the Bardo
Thödul, the Tibetan book of the dead, the doctrine of the
underworld and paradise.
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