The Hero with a Thousand Faces

The modern student may, of course, study these symbols as he will, either as a symptom of others’ ignorance, or as a sign to him of his own, either in terms of a reduction of metaphysics to psychology, or vice versa. The traditional way was to meditate on the symbols in both senses. In any case, they are telling metaphors of the destiny of man, man’s hope, man’s faith, and man’s dark mystery. 2. The Universal Round

As the consciousness of the individual rests on a sea of night into which it descends in slumber and out of which it mysteriously wakes, so, in the imagery of myth, the universe is precipitated out of, and reposes upon, a timelessness back into which it again dissolves. And as the mental and physical health of the individual depends on an orderly flow of vital forces into the field of waking day from the unconscious dark, so again in myth, the continuance of the cosmic order is assured only by a controlled flow of power from the source. The gods are symbolic personifications of the laws governing this flow. The gods come into existence with the dawn of the world and dissolve with the twilight. They are not eternal in the sense that the night is eternal. Only from the shorter span of human existence does the round of a cosmogonic eon seem to endure.

The cosmogonic cycle is normally represented as repeating itself, world without end. During each great round, lesser dissolutions are commonly included, as the cycle of sleep and waking revolves throughout a lifetime. According to an Aztec version, each of the four elements — water, earth, air, and fire — terminates a period of the world: the eon of the waters ended in deluge, that of the earth with an earthquake, that of air with a wind, and the present eon will be destroyed by flame.^[9]

According to the Stoic doctrine of the cyclic conflagration, all souls are resolved into the world soul or primal fire. When this universal dissolution is concluded, the formation of a new universe begins (Cicero’s renovatio), and all things repeat themselves, every divinity, every person, playing again his former part. Seneca gave a description of this destruction in his “De Consolatione ad Marciam,” and appears to have looked forward to living again in the cycle to come.^[10]

A magnificent vision of the cosmogonic round is presented in the mythology of the Jains. The most recent prophet and savior of this very ancient Indian sect was Mahāvīra, a contemporary of the Buddha (sixth century b.c.). His parents were already followers of a much earlier Jaina savior-prophet, Pārśvanātha, who is represented with snakes springing from his shoulders and is reputed to have flourished 872–772 b.c. Centuries before Pārśvanātha, there lived and died the Jaina savior Neminātha, declared to have been a cousin of the beloved Hindu incarnation Kṛṣṇa. And before him, again, were exactly twenty-one others, going all the way back to Ṛṣabhanātha, who existed in an earlier age of the world, when men and women were always born in wedded couples, were two miles tall, and lived for a period of countless years. Ṛṣabhanātha instructed the people in the seventy-two sciences (writing, arithmetic, reading of omens, etc.), the sixty-four accomplishments of women (cooking, sewing, etc.), and the one hundred arts (pottery, weaving, painting, smithing, barbering, etc.); also, he introduced them to politics and established a kingdom.

Before his day, such innovations would have been superfluous; for the people of the preceding period — who were four miles tall, with one hundred and twenty-eight ribs, enjoying a life span of two periods of countless years — were supplied in all their needs by ten “wish-fulfilling trees” (kalpa-vṛkṣa), which gave sweet fruits, leaves that were shaped like pots and pans, leaves that sweetly sang, leaves that gave forth light at night, flowers delightful to see and to smell, food perfect both to sight and to taste, leaves that might serve as jewelry, and bark providing beautiful clothes. One of the trees was like a many-storied palace in which to live; another shed a gentle radiance, like that of many little lamps. The earth was sweet as sugar; the ocean as delicious as wine. And then again, before this happy age, there had been a period happier still — precisely twice as happy — when men and women had been eight miles tall, possessing each two hundred and fifty-six ribs. When those superlative people died, they passed directly to the world of the gods, without ever having heard of religion, for their natural virtue was as perfect as their beauty.