The Hero with a Thousand Faces

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.