The Hero with a Thousand Faces

But Viṣṇu, concerned lest the gods should lose the advantage, transformed himself into a beautiful dancing damsel. And while the titans, who were lusty fellows, stood spellbound by the girl’s charm, she took up the moon-cup of Amṛta, teased them with it for a moment, and then suddenly passed it over to the gods. Viṣṇu immediately again transformed himself into a mighty hero, joined the gods against the titans, and helped drive away the enemy to the crags and dark canyons of the world beneath. The gods now dine on the Amṛta forever, in their beautiful palaces on the summit of the central mountain of the world, Mount Sumeru.^[152]

Humor is the touchstone of the truly mythological as distinct from the more literal-minded and sentimental theological mood. The gods as icons are not ends in themselves. Their entertaining myths transport the mind and spirit, not up to, but past them, into the yonder void; from which perspective the more heavily freighted theological dogmas then appear to have been only pedagogical lures: their function, to cart the unadroit intellect away from its concrete clutter of facts and events to a comparatively rarefied zone, where, as a final boon, all existence — whether heavenly, earthly, or infernal — may at last be seen transmuted into the semblance of a lightly passing, recurrent, mere childhood dream of bliss and fright. “From one point of view all those divinities exist,” a Tibetan lama re­cently replied to the question of an understanding Occidental visitor, “from another they are not real.”^[153] This is the orthodox teaching of the ancient Tantras: “All of these visualized deities are but symbols representing the various things that occur on the Path”;^[154] as well as a doctrine of the contemporary psychoanalytical schools.^[155] And the same meta-theological insight seems to be what is suggested in Dante’s final verses, where the illuminated voyager at last is able to lift his courageous eyes beyond the beatific vision of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to the one Eternal Light.^[156]

Figure 41. The Conquest of the Monster: David and Goliath • The Harrowing of Hell • Samson and the Lion (engraving, Germany, a.d. 1471)

The gods and goddesses then are to be understood as embodiments and custodians of the elixir of Imperishable Being but not themselves the Ultimate in its primary state. What the hero seeks through his intercourse with them is therefore not finally themselves, but their grace, i.e., the power of their sustaining substance. This miraculous energy-substance and this alone is the Imperishable; the names and forms of the deities who everywhere embody, dispense, and represent it come and go. This is the miraculous energy of the thunderbolts of Zeus, Yahweh, and the Supreme Buddha, the fertility of the rain of Viracocha, the virtue announced by the bell rung in the Mass at the consecration,^[157] and the light of the ultimate illumination of the saint and sage. Its guardians dare release it only to the duly proven.

But the gods may be oversevere, overcautious, in which case the hero must trick them of their treasure. Such was the problem of Prometheus. When in this mood even the highest gods appear as malignant, life-hoarding ogres, and the hero who deceives, slays, or appeases them is honored as the savior of the world.

Maui of Polynesia went against Mahu-ika, the guardian of fire, to wring from him his treasure and transport it back to mankind. Maui went straight up to the giant Mahu-ika and said to him: “Clear away the brush from this level field of ours so that we may contend together in friendly rivalry.” Maui, it must be told, was a great hero and a master of devices.

Mahu-ika inquired, “What feat of mutual prowess and emulation shall it be?”

“The feat of tossing,” Maui replied.

To this Mahu-ika agreed; then Maui asked, “Who shall begin?”

Mahu-ika answered, “I shall.”

Maui signified his consent, so Mahu-ika took hold of Maui and tossed him up in the air; he rose high above and fell right down into Mahu-ika’s hands; again Mahu-ika tossed Maui up, chanting: “Tossing, tossing — up you go!”

Up went Maui, and then Mahu-ika chanted this incantation:

Up you go to the first level,

Up you go to the second level,

Up you go to the third level,

Up you go to the fourth level,

Up you go to the fifth level,

Up you go to the sixth level,

Up you go to the seventh level,

Up you go to the eighth level,

Up you go to the ninth level,

Up you go to the tenth level!