The Hero with a Thousand Faces

the demon of that place began giving contrary doctrines. And among other things, he sought to discredit what the priest had been teaching concerning the Incarnation, declaring that it had not yet come to pass; but that presently the Sun would bring it to pass by taking flesh in the womb of a virgin of the village of Guacheta, causing her to conceive by the rays of the sun while she yet remained a virgin. These tidings were proclaimed throughout the region. And it so happened that the head man of the village named had two virgin daughters, each desirous that the miracle should become accomplished in her. These then began going out from their father’s dwellings and garden-enclosure every morning at the first peep of dawn; and mounting one of the numerous hills about the village, in the direction of the sunrise, they disposed themselves in such a way that the first rays of the sun would be free to shine upon them. This going on for a number of days, it was granted the demon by divine permission (whose judgments are incomprehensible) that things should come to pass as he had planned, and in such fashion that one of the daughters became pregnant, as she declared, by the sun. Nine months and she brought into the world a large and valuable hacuata, which in their language is an emerald. The woman took this, and, wrapping it in cotton, placed it between her breasts, where she kept it a number of days, at the end of which time it was transformed into a living creature: all by order of the demon. The child was named Goranchacho, and he was reared in the household of the head man, his grandfather, until he was some twenty-four years of age.

Then he proceeded in triumphant procession to the capital of the nation, and was celebrated throughout the provinces as the “Child of the Sun.”^[8]

Hindu mythology tells of the maiden Pārvatī, daughter of the mountain king, Himalaya, who retreated into the high hills to practice very severe austerities. A tyrant-titan named Taraka had usurped the mastery of the world, and, according to the prophecy, only a son of the High God Śiva could overthrow him. Śiva, however, was the pattern god of yoga — aloof, alone, indrawn in meditation. It was impossible that Śiva should ever be moved to beget a son.

Pārvatī determined to change the world situation by matching Śiva in meditation. Aloof, alone, indrawn into her soul, she too fasted naked beneath the blazing sun, even adding to the heat by building four additional great fires, to each of the four quarters. The handsome body shriveled to a brittle construction of bones, the skin became leathery and hard. Her hair stood matted and wild. The soft liquid eyes burned.

One day a Brahmin youth arrived and asked why anyone so beautiful should be destroying herself with such torture.

“My desire,” she replied, “is Śiva, the Highest Object. Śiva is a god of solitude and unshakable concentration. I therefore am practicing these austerities to move him from his state of balance and bring him to me in love.”

“Śiva,” the youth said, “is a god of destruction. Śiva is the World Annihilator. Śiva’s delight is to meditate in burial grounds amidst the reek of corpses; there he beholds the rot of death, and that is congenial to his devastating heart. Śiva’s garlands are of living serpents. Śiva is a pauper, furthermore, and no one knows anything of his birth.”

The virgin said: “He is beyond the mind of such as you. A pauper, but the fountainhead of wealth; terrifying but the source of grace; snake-garlands or jewel-garlands he can assume or put off at will. How should he have been born, when he is the creator of the uncreated! Śiva is my love.”

The youth thereupon put away his disguise — and was Śiva.^[9]

Figure 68. Coatlicue of the Serpent-woven Skirt, Earth Mother (carved stone, Aztec, Mexico, late fifteenth century a.d.)4. Folk Stories of Virgin Motherhood

The Buddha descended from heaven to his mother’s womb in the shape of a milk-white elephant. The Aztec Coatlicue, “She of the Serpent-woven Skirt,” was approached by a god in the form of a ball of feathers. The chapters of Ovid’s Metamorphoses swarm with nymphs beset by gods in sundry masquerades: Jove as a bull, a swan, a shower of gold. Any leaf accidentally swallowed, any nut, or even the breath of a breeze, may be enough to fertilize the ready womb. The procreating power is everywhere. And according to the whim or destiny of the hour, either a hero-savior or a world-annihilating demon may be conceived — one can never know.