Vergelijking taoisme en confucianisme

(1) Div., Korean Philosophy- Sources and interpretations”, Korea University Press 2015 – “Div., “Changes in the concept of Tao”; “The scholars who prepared zhai-jiao [Jae-Cho] texts upon the order of the King until Sogyeokseao was officially demolished displayed mixed attitudes. While they accepted the Taoism of Jae-Chos, they attempted to replace the Taoist concept and ideology with neo-Confucian ideas. In the process, the interpretation and explanation of Tao emerged as a major issue. / Neo-Confucianists held Tao sacred as an object of rituals, but at the same time, they tried to explain and interpret it in a Neo-Confucian manner. They interpreted Tao as ‘something without sound or smell’. This shows that Tao had scope to be interpreted from a Neo-Confucian point of view. In conclusion, the inclusion of the concept of Tao into the world of Neo-Confucianism is one of the features of the Taoism of the Chosun dynasty. ‘Although it is hard to name the profound reason that has neither sound nor smell, you continued respect and sincerity will finally reach it and touch it. [Gwon Geun, ‘Youngbodojang Cheonsa’ // ‘Is it impossible to understand the substance of the profound Tao because it has neither sound nor smell. But it is trustworthy and worthy of prayer. I bow on my knees and pray with sincerity that my heart will reach Sangje.’ [Youn Jun, ‘Bukdouhegyoe Chocheongsa’] // ‘It governs all things without sound or smell. For a long time, we have been suffering for a drought ghost very severely as if we are on fire. I hereby sincerely pray for your blessings.’ [Yi Seung-so, ‘Taeilcho’]”

Boeddhisme, China

(1) Div., Korean Philosophy- Sources and interpretations”, Korea University Press 2015 – Div., “The theory of sudden awakening-gradual practice”; “Huineng’s great contribution to Chinese Buddhism was that he reinterpreted the abstract essence’ mentioned in traditions Chinese Buddhism as ‘the concrete and actual human mind’. This is, he transformed the exterior and dependent characteristics of traditional Chinese Buddhism into the worship of Buddha in the worship of ‘the original nature’. This means that he did not cling to the inquiry of the real aspects of the universe as essence but instead brought about a kind of qualitative transformation by liberating the human being from essence through practical interpretation of the human being. According to Huineng, only the vital man’s life is entitled to occupy the supreme position. / After all, Huineng thought that delusion or agony and liberation are two sides of the same coin and that Bodhi does not exist separate from the human being or the subject of agony. That is, according to Huineng, awakening means to suddenly find Buddha’s nature or the original nature solely based on the human mind. So his central idea was that the original nature is the Buddha himself. As a moment’s though may enable one to be keenly aware of the difference between delusion and awakening, everyone could become a Buddha if only he could grasp his true mind.”

Christendom, Verwantschap met gnosticisme

(1) Walter Nigg, “Das Buch der Ketzer“, Diogenes 1986; “Der ‚unbekante Gott‘ an den Paulus in Athen anknüft, fürth in die Nähe der gnostischen Gottesauffasung.“

—————————

(2) Hans Jonas, “The Gnostic Religion – The Message of the Alien God and he Beginnings of Christianity”, Beacon Press  1991; “The speculative principle of Valetinianism – Valentinus and his school represent the culmination of what for want of a better name we have been calling in this study the Syrian-Egyptian type of Gnostic speculation. The disguising principle of the type is the attempt to place the origin of darkness, and thereby of the dualistic rift of being, within the godhead itself, and thus to develop the divine tragedy, the necessity of salvation arising from it, and the dynamics of this salvation itself, as wholly a sequence of inner-divine events. Radically understood, this principle involve the task of deriving not only such spiritual facts as passion, ignorance, and evil but the very nature of matter in its contrariety to the spirit form the prime spiritual source: it very existence is to be accounted for in terms of the divine history itself And this means, in mental terms; and in view of the nature of the end product more particularly, in terms of divine error and failure. In product more particularly, in terms of divine error and failure. In this way matter would appear to be a function rather than a substance on its own, a state of ‘affection’ of the absolute being, and the solidified external expression of that state: its stable externality is in truth nothing but the residual by-product of a deteriorating movement of inwardness, representing and as it were fixating the lowest reach of its defection from itself. /

(3) Passim: Now the religious significance, apart from the theoretic interest, of a successful discharge of this speculative task lies in this, that in such a system ‘knowledge’, together with its privative, ‘ignorance’, I raised to an ontological position of the first order: both are principles of objective and total existence, not merely of subjective and private experience. Their role is constitutive for reality as a whole. Instead of in, as generally in Gnostic thought, a result of divine immersion in the lower world, ‘ignorance’ here is rather the first cause of their begin such  lower world at all, its begetting, principle as well as its abiding substance: however numerous the intermediate stages through which matter, this seeming ultimate is connected with the one supreme source, in its essence it is shown to be the obscured and self-estranged form of that to which it appears to be the opposite – just as ignorance, its underlying Principe, is the obscured mode of its opposite knowledge. For knowledge is the original condition of the Absolute, the primary fact, and ignorance not simply the neutral absence of it in a subject unrelated to knowledge but a disturbance befalling a part of the Absolute, the primary fact, and ignorance not simply the neutral absence of it in a subject unrelated to knowledge but a disturbance befalling a part of the Absolute, around out of its own motivation and resulting in the negative conditions still related to the original one of knowledge n that represent the lesser perversion of it. It is thus a derivative state, therefore revocable, and so is its external manifestation or hypostatized product: materiality / thus if this is the ontological function of ‘ignorance’, then ‘knowledge’ to assume a ontological status far exceeding any merely moral and psychological importance granted to it; an the redemptional claim made on its behalf in all Gnostic religion receives her a  metaphysical grounding in the doctrine of total existence which makes it convincingly the sole and sufficient vehicle of salvation, and this salvation itself in each soul a cosmic event.

(4) Passim: For it is not only the spiritual condition of the human person but also the very existence of the universe is constituted by the results of ignorance and as a substantilization of ignorance, then very individual illumination by ‘knowledge helps to cancel out against the total system sustained by that principle; and, as such knowing finally transposes the individual self to the divine realm, it also plays its part in reintegrating the impaired godhead itself. / Thus this type of solution of the theoretical problem of first beginnings and of the causes of dualism would if successful establishes the absolute position of gnosis in the soteriological scheme: from being a qualifying condition for salvation, still requiring the co-operation of sacrament and of divine grace, from being a means among means, it becomes the adequate form of salvation itself. As an original aspiration of all Gnostic thought it comes here to fruition. That knowledge affects not only the knower but the known itself; an original aspiration of all Gnostic thought comes here to fruition. That knowledge afflicts not only the knower but the known itself; that by every ‘private’ act of knowledge the objective ground of being is moved and modified; that subject and object are the same in essence [though not on the same scale] – these are tenets of a mystical conception of knowledge’ which yet can have a rational basis in the proper metaphysical premises. Whit the proud sense that their system did in fact represent the solution of the speculative task so understood did provide the theoretical basis for the mystical sufficiency of ‘gnosis alone’; the Valentinians could say rejecting all mystery-ritual and sacraments:

(5) Passim: ‘One must not perform the mystery of the ineffable and invisible power through visible and corruptible things of creation, nor that of the unthinkable and immaterial being though sensible and corporeal things. Perfect salvation is the cognition itself of het ineffable greatness: for since through ‘Ignorance’ came about ‘Defect’ and ‘Passion’, the whole system springing from the Ignorance is dissolved by knowledge. Therefore knowledge is salvation of the inner man; and it is not corporeal, for the body is corruptible; nor is it psychical, for even the soul is a product of the defect and is as a lodging to the spirit: spiritual therefore must also be [the form of] salvation. Through knowledge, then, is saved the inner, spiritual man; so that to us surfaces the knowledge of universal being: this is the true salvation.’ [Iren. I.21.4] // This is the grand ‘pneumatic equation’ of Valentinian thought: the human-individual event of pneumatic knowledge is the inverse equivalent of the pre-cosmic universal even of divine ignorance, and in its redeeming effect of the same ontological order. The actualization of knowledge in the person is at the same time an act in the general ground of being. / We have anticipated the result of Valentinian speculation and must now present the system itself as the argument supporting this result. We have met before in Gnostic thought two different symbolic figures to representing their fate the divine fall, the male Primal Man and the female Thought of God. IN the typical system of the Syrian-Egyptian Gnosis, it is the latter who personifies the fallible aspect of God, usually under the name of ‘Sophia’, i.e., ‘Wisdom’, a paradoxical name in view of the history of follow of which she is made the protagonist. /

(6) Passim: A divine hypostasis already in post-biblical Jewish speculation, the ‘Wisdom’ [chockmah] was there conceived as God’s helper or agent in the creation of the world, similar to the alternative hypostasis of the ‘Word’. How this figure, or at least its name, came to be combined in Gnostic thought with the moon-, and love-goddess of \near Eastern religion to form that ambiguous figure encompassing the whole scale from the highest to the lowest, from the most spiritual to the utterly sensual [as expressed in the very combination ‘Sophia-Prunikos’, ‘Wisdom the Whore’], we do not know and, lacking evidence of any intermediate stages, cannot even hypothetically reconstruct. As early as Simon the figure is fully developed in its Gnostic sence. But the psychological elaboration of her destiny is there still rudimentary, the causation of her fall more in the nature of a mishap brought upon her by her offspring than in the nature of an inner motivation. In their system leaned other to the Valentinian form the tale of the Sophia is made the subject of major en more extensive elaboration, with her own psychological share in it becoming increasingly prominent. / The closes approximation to the Valentinian form is represented by the Barbeliotes described by Ireaneus [I. 29] and recently become more fully known through the Apochryphon of John. They, like the Ophites, found it necessary, in view of the wide span of conditions to be represented by the female aspect of God, to differentiate this aspect into an upper and a lower Sophia, the latter being the fallen shape of the former and the bearer of all the divine distress and indignities following from the fall.

(7) Passim: In both systems the differentiae is expressed by separate names: the original female aspect of God is called by the Barbeliotes ‘Barbelo’[possibly ‘Virgin’’ ] and ‘Ennoia’, by the Ophites ‘Holy Spirit’ [this to the Barbeliotes is one of the names of the fallen form]; the name ‘Sophia ‘is by both reserved for her unfortunate emanation, also called ‘Prunikos’ and ‘The Left’. This doubling of the Sophia is most fully worked out in the Valentinian system.  The particular proximity of the barbeliotes to the Valentinians consist in their having a developed doctrine of the Pleroma and using the concept of emanation in Paros for its progressive production out of the divine unity of which its members are by their abstract names shown to be the different aspects. / It is with the same formal means, but on a higher level of theoretical discipline and spiritual differentiation, that Valentinus and his followers undertook the treatment of the same speculative theme.  Our analytical remarks at the beginning of this chapter have indicated the twofold tasks which the Valentinian speculation took upon itself: on the one hand to who the self-motivation of divine degradation without the intervention or even passive participation of an external agency, and on the other hand to explain matter itself as a spiritual condition of the universal subject. We do not claim that these two themes were the only theoretical concerns of the Valentinians [or even that tot them the intellectual side in general, rather than the imaginative one, constituted the religious significance of their teaching]; but the treatment of those particular themes is certainly the most original part of their thought, consisting that contribution to general Gnostic doctrine which justifies our seeing in them the most compete representatives of whole type.”

Mythen, Scheppingsmythen

(1) Mircea Eliade “Aspects du mythe” Gallimard 1963; “We have seen that there are several possibilities to go back, but the most important are: 1. the prompt and direct reintegration of the first situation [either Chaos or the pre-cosmogonic state, or the moment of creation] , and 2. the gradual return to the ‘origin’, going back in Time, from the present moment to the ‘absolute beginning’ In the first case, it is a question of, a dizzying, even instantaneous, abolition of the Cosmos [or of the human being as a result of a certain temporal duration] and the restoration of the original situation [‘Chaos’ or – at the anthropological level – the ‘seed’, the ‘embryo’]. The resemblance is evident between the structure of this method and that of the mythic-ritual scenarios of precipitated regression to ‘Chaos’ and the reiteration of cosmogony. / In the second case, that of the gradual return to origin, we are dealing with a meticulous and exhaustive recollection of personal and historical events. Certainly, in this case also the ultimate goal is to ‘burn’ these memories, to abolish them in a way by reliving them and by detaching from them. But it does not act to erase them instantly in order to reach the original moment as quickly as possible. On the contrary, the important thing is to remember even the most insignificant details of existence [present or previous], because it is only thanks to this memory that one manages to ‘burn’ his past, to master it, to ‘prevent intervening in the present. /

 (2) Passim: We can see the difference with the first type, whose model is the instantaneous abolition of the World and its re-creation. Here, memory plays the capital role. One gets rid of the work of Time by remembrance, by anamnesis. The main thing is to remember all the events that we have witnessed in time. This technique is therefore linked to the Archaic conception that we have discussed at length, with the importance of knowing the origin and the history of a thing, in order to be able to master it. Certainly, the going back in time imposes an experience dependent on personal memory, while the knowledge of the origin is reduced to the apprehension of an exemplary primordial history, of a myth. But the structures are homologable. It is always a question of remembering, what happened in the beginning, and since then. / We touch here on a capital problem not only for the intelligence of myth, but above all for the subsequent development of mythical thought. Knowledge of the origin and the exemplary history of things grant a spell of magical mastery over things. But this knowledge also opens the way for systematic speculation on the origin and structures of the World. We will come back to this problem. However, we must now specify that memory is considered the connaissance par excellence. The one who is able to remember himself has a magic-religious force even more precious than the one who knows the origin of things.”

Christendom, Evangeliën

(1) Alec R. Vidler, “The Pelican history of the church – The church in an age of revolution”, Penguin 1971;  “The outstanding facet about the Christianity of the apostolic age was a deep division of opinion about the character and object of the new religion. The church was divided into two parties, the Judaists and the Universalists. The original apostles were all Judaists, who insisted that obligation to keep the Jewish law was perpetual. Jesus the Messiah had re-established Judaism. The Universalists, on the other hand, who were headed by the Apostle Paul, held that the Gospel was addressed to Jews and Gentiles alike on equal terms. It addressed to Jews and Gentiles alike on equal terms. It proclaimed a liberation form Jewish law and traditions. Al the antitheses to be found in Paul’s authentic Epistles Galatians, Romans, I and II Corinthians] – grace and law, faith and works, the spirit and the letter, etc. – reflect the antagonism between these contrary beliefs. / According to Baur, Paul understood Jesus better than the original disciplines. The religion of Jesus had been spiritual and Universalist; he had discerned the highest elements in the religious movements of the past, out of which the religion of the future might be fashioned. But in order to get a footing for it in the world, he had to claim to be the Messiah of Jewish expectation, a claim which could be understood – or by the original disciples, but the germ of the dialectical conflict between Universalism and Judaism were latent in the teaching of Jesus himself. / The conflict between these antithetical forms of early Christianity was not only intense but prolonged. It was not until after A.D 150 that they were definitely reconciled in a synthesis. From a Hegelian point of view, it was a fine example of the way in which unity is evolved out of contradiction. The Catholic synthesis was a synthesis, and not a complete victory for either side. It was Pauline in its Universalism, but also Petrine since it found a place for a new law, a new priesthood, and a new ritual. / 

(2) Passim: Al the New Testament documents bore the marks of this dialectical process. The more irenic the tone of any document, the more obviously did it belong to the latest or synthesizing phase of the process. Thus the incompatibility of the Acts of the Apostles with the authentic Epistles of Paul is due to the fact that Acts was a work of fiction, written about the middle of the second century with the intention of covering over the conflict that had divided Christians in the apostolic age and of promising the harmony that was now being reached. Hence Acts suppresses all mention of the conflict between Peter and Paul at Antioch, and represents Paul as zealously fulfilling the Jewish ceremonial law and as addressing himself primarily to Jews, while at the same time it attributes a universal attitude the earliest disciples who are said to be the first to declared that the Torah was not binding on Gentile convents. By such means acts produces its synthesis. / each of the four Gospels was likewise written with a purpose that reflects a different phase of the Fourth Gospel, which Baur dated late in the second century, the culmination of ht synthesis was reached. The identification of Jesus with the logos of Greek philosophy made possible the elaborations of a Christian gnosis that could embrace al the metaphysical and ethical ideas that had been present in the Christian movement.”

Gilgamesj mythe

(1) Div., “Das Gilgamesch-epos”, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1977 – Benno Landsberger, “Einleitung in das Gilgames-Epos“ [1960]; “In the treatment of the Gilgamesh material we can distinguish three stages of development: a) The Sumerian version, about 2000 B.C. It has come upon us only in pieces and difficult to understand. The material is not covered in a single epic, but Gilgamesh's various adventures are told separately. One of these epics tells us that Gilgamesh was lord of Uru in southern Babylonia and waged war against Agga, the king of the city of Kish in northern Babylonia. In later versions this view of Gilgamesh as a historical personality is no longer found, but his firm attachment to Uruk is also a constant feature. He is considered the builder of the city walls of Uruk. The poet of the last version demands the audience to view this artistic wall and read the text of Gilgamesh on the wall, thereby proving that his hero really lived. In the rest, however, Gilgamesh stands in a completely mythological world. … b) The old-Babylonian version. She is the age of Hammurabi [ca. 1800 B.C.] originated and came down to us incompletely, namely only in the three tables. But even in their inadequacy these tables are sufficient to give us a clear understanding of the second stage in the development of the epic. Using the Sumerian conception and popular fairy tales, the poet freely created the epic of Gilgamesh's quest for eternal life.

(2) Passim: In the hand of this genius poet, the Epic of Gilgamesh has retained what we call the Faustic streak, the character of a problematic poem. The epic was written to answer the question of the value of life that transcends the toils and struggles of human existence. The answer is completely pessimistic: all effort is for nothing. The only thing that emerges from all intermingled human life is that friendship, which, in contrast to the despicable love of women, has a high value. Unfortunately, this value is also perishable, because the power of the god-directed, but subject to an eternal order, friendship, which itself cannot abolish death, and belief in fate, which makes men always strive in vain, the some positive points in the sad atmosphere of the epic. / The depth of this thought is in direct contrast to the form into which the poet has poured his substance. The epic shows the style of the simplest folk poem, the poet has used the six-footed verse. The construction of the epic is transparent, the course of the episodes follows a series of dramatic lines. At the moment where the heroes in the excess of their strength exceed the limits of every size, they see their fortune suddenly turned. The last act enters after the slaying of the bull of heaven; this is followed by Enku's death and Gilgamesh's pardonable quest for eternal life. / The fundamental idea which governs the epic, and the form in which it is cast, the Old Babylonian poet invented as well as the episodes which occur in the land of the action, the special character of persons and the nature as they play with and against each other. /

(3) Passim: c) The date of the last version cannot be stated with certainty. If we turn to the year 1250 B.C., we do so with a view to the canonization of Babylonian literature and science, which took its solid, definitive form around 1250. / The last poet of the Gilgamesh claim is a Kassite-era artist names Sin-lqe-unnunni; he has dissolved the work from its deliberately simple form and turned it into an extremely artistic form. The modernization of the epic continued in such a way that the intentions of the older poets remained assured on all sides, but the treatment of the material was enriched and refined. It is unknown whether the latter poet added new motifs to the work. He may have added to the epic the story of the flood in the 11th tablet: he may have borrowed this substance from another ancient Babylonian poem, the Atramhasis epic. Babylonian Noah, after being rescued from the flood, obtained eternal life, became wholly spiritual property of the Sumerians… to smell the savor of the long-missed smoke-offering. As for the goddess Istar, she sits swearing like an old woman and shews thoughtless mischief, which is only turned away from Eas by cunning. The gods are ennobled in two factions, between which god Enlil plays an arbitrary role of mediator. The only god of whom the poet is to be esteemed, the sun-god, who guides Gilgamesh. In reverent anguish the poet speaks of the immutable laws and rules, which gods in primitive times themselves and men have imposed, but the views he puts forward about it are nothing more than a free bitterness marked by bitter ridicule. As in Homer, the gods from above guide the actions of men, but are themselves governed by desire and intrigue. /

(4) Passim: In contrast, the human heroes Gilgamesh and Enkidu act as innocent children, acting out of hubris, as something subservient. When the poet has achieved his goal, all these persons leave the scene and do not perform anymore. Even the mother, who carefully sends her son Gilgamesh on her way with all the advice and good wishes, no longer appears when the son returns. Thus the Epic of Gilgamesh proves itself as a mirror of the life of a single great man, as a symbol of human life.”

Religie, China, Algemeen

(1) Aug. Gladisch, “12. Programm des königlichen Wilhelms-Gymnasiums zu Krotoschin zu Ostern 1866 als Einladung zu den öffentlichen Prüfung der Schüler und Entlassing der Abiturienten“, Th. Hoffman 1866; “The Apollonian cult, in addition to what has been argued, also shows the Hyporchem a striking commonality with the ancient Chinese. The Hyporchem was a traditional genre of Apollonian hymns, which were connected with music and dance and, according to O. Müller, were recited in such a way that ‘besides the singing choir, which ‘at the sound of the instruments’ dances around the burning sacrifice on the altar, several persons were commissioned to accompany the action of the poem with representations, movements and naive facial expressions’, … And Lucian informs us that this Hyporchem also found frequent use at the sacrifices on Delos. This very Hyporchem had also been introduced into the religious festivities of the ancient Chinese from the earliest times; dancers were drawn up to the singer and musicians, who had the same destination, as was the case with the Apollonian culture. Namely, in the expression of the Chinese, ‘by their position and by their evolutions, to tell the eyes what the voices of the singers and the instruments say to the ears.

Mythen, Wedergeboorte

(1) Mircea Eliade, “Initiation, rites, societies secétes”, Gallimard 1959; “Wij hebben een deel van het vorige hoofdstuk gewijd aan de initiatieriten van regresus ad uterum, waarbij de kandidaat symbolisch in een embryo wordt getransformeerd. De terugkeer tot de moeder staat in deze context altijl voor de terugkeer naar de grote chtonische moeder. De ingewijde wordt voorde tweede keer geboren uit de boezem van de Terra Mater. Maar, zoals we al zeiden, er zijn andere mythen en overtuigingen waarin twee nieuwe elementen worden geïntroduceerd: 1. De held dringt binnenin de buik van de chtonische gore moeder zonder terug te vallen naar de embryonische staat; 2. Deze onderneming is bijzonder gevaarlijk. Een Polynesische mythe illustreert op een verschrikkelijke manier dit verhaal van initiatie door regresus. Aan het einde van een avontuurlijk leven keert de grote held Maui, de grot Maori held, terug naar zijn vaderland, naar zijn grootmoeder hine-Nuite-Po, de grote dame van de nacht. Hij vond haar slapend en, zo snel mogelijk zijn kleren uittrekkend, dringt hij door in het lichaam van de reuzin. Hij passeert het zonder moeite, maar als hij op het punt staat naar buiten te komen, merkt hij dat hij nog altijd de helt van zijn lichaam in de mond van de reuzin heeft, De vogels die hem vergezelden barstten in lachen uit. Met een schok ontwaakt, klemde de grote dame van de nacht haar tanden op elkaar en beet de grote held in tweeën, die eraan stierf. Het is om deze reden, zeggen de Maori, dat de mens sterfelijk is; als Amui ongedeerd had kunnen ontsnappen uit het lichaam van zijn grootmoeder, zouden de mensen onsterfelijk zijn geworden. /

 (2) Passim: De grootmoeder van Mauï is de Terra Mater. Penetreren in haar buik, is het levend afdalen in de diepere onderaardse terreinen, zogezegd de hel. Het gaat hier om een descensus ad inferos, welke is vastgesteld, bijvoorbeeld, in de mythen en sagen van het antieke Oosten en de wereld van de middellandse zee. Al deze mythen en saga’s hebben nu een zeker initiërende structuur: levend afdalen in de hel, de monsters en de helse demonen tegemoet treden, dat is met zekerheid een initiatie test. Laten we hieraan toevoegen dat soortgelijke afdalingen in de hel in wagens en botten, een specifiek element zijn van heroïsche inwijdingen, welke de verovering van de lichamelijke onsterflijkheid nastreven. Natuurlijk hebben we hier een inwijdingsceremonie, en niet de eigenlijke rituelen – maar mythen zijn vaak beter geschikt om religieus bewustzijn te begrijpen dan riten. Want het is de mythe die veel completer het diepe verlangen onthuld, vaakonbewust, van de religieuze mens. / In al deze contexten In al deze contexten manifesteert de grote chronische moeder zich overal in de godin van de dood en de meesteres van de doden; men kan spreken over de aanwezigheid van bedreigende en agressieve aspecten. In de begrafenismythologie van de Malekula, is er een afschrikwekkende vrouwelijke figuur, die men Lev-hev-hev noemt, zij wacht op de doden bij ingang van een grot of bij een rots. Voor haar op de grond is een labyrintische tekening getekend, en als de dode man vlakbij is wist zij de helft van de tekening uit. Als dus de dode de labyrintische tekening al kent, – als een geïnitieerde – vindt hij gemakkelijk het pad; als de vrouw hem niet opvreet Zoals men kan zeggen na de reizen van de Diaken en Layrad, de vele labyrintische tekeningen op het zand in Malekula zijn bedoeld om het pad van de dood te leren, van de doden. Ook kan men zeggen dat het labyrint een initiatie post mortem vormt: men staat tussen de obstakels die de doden moeten overwinnen, – of, in een andere context, de held – in zijn reis in het hiernamaals. De eigenschap die hier moet worden benadrukt is, dat het labyrint zich presenteert als een gevaarlijke doorgang door de ingewanden van ‘moeder aarde’, een passage waar de zielen van de doden waarschijn worden verslonden door een vrouwelijk monster.

 (3) Passim: Er bestaan in Malakula andere mythische figuren, die reïncarnerend zijn in het dreigende gevaarlijke vrouwelijke principe; bijvoorbeeld, de vrouw-krab’ met twee zeer grote scharen, of de gigantische schillen [Tridacna deresa] die, geopend, ijkt op een vrouwelijk sexueel orgaan. De schikaanjagende beelden van de agressieve vrouwelijke sexualiteit en de verslingerende moederlijkheid, welke het inwijdende karkater va a de afdaling in de grote moeder nog duidelijker naar voren brengen. Carl Hetze heeft getond dat de talloze iconografieën van motieven van Zuid-Amerika de mond van moeder aarde vertegenwoordigen onder het aspect van een vagina dentaal. Zeker, het mythisch thema van de vagina dentata is zeer complex, en we zijn niet van plan er hier iets an te doen. Maar het is belangrijk om te constateren dat de ambivalentie van de grote chronische moeder perfect is uitgedrukt, mythisch en iconografisch, door de identificatie van de kaak met de vagina dentata. In de mythen en saga’s over initiatie, is de reis door de buik van een reuzin en de ontsnapping door de mond, equivalent aan een hergeboorte. Maar de passage is des te gevaarlijker. Om het verschilt beoordelen dat bestaat tussen het initiatie scenario en het motief dat wij bestuderen in de volgende hoofdstukken, het is alleen nodig om de situatie van de novicen te onthouden, die in de vorm van zeemonsters in de initiatiehutten zaten opgesloten: ze zouden worden opgelokt in de buik van het monster, zij zijn nu ‘doden’, verteerd en in het proces van wedergeboren te worden.

 (4) Passim: Op een dag zullen ze worden afgewezen door het monster: ze zullen een tweede keer worden geboren. Maar in de groep mythen die wij nu onderzoeken penetreren de helden, levend en intact, in het interieur van het monster of in de buik van de godin- zij is degelijkheid Terra Mater en de godin van de dood – en, een aantal keren, slaagt men erin open ongedeerd te blijven. Volgens bepaalde varianten van de Kalevala, onderneemt de held Vainämöninen een reis in het land van de doden, Tonele. De dochter van Tuoni, de heer het hiernamaals, overspoelt hem – maar, hij arriveert in de maag van de reuzin, Väinömoninen construeert zich een kleine boot en, zoals de tekst dat uitdrukt, de reuzin is uiteindelijk gedwongen om over te geven in de zee. Een ander, Finse, mythe vertelt over de avonturen van de vervalser Ilmarinen: een jonge jongen die het hof maakt en als voorwaarde krijgt opgelegd, om tussen de schaarse tanden van een oude heks door te lopen. Ilmarinen gaat op zoek naar en benadert de heks, die hem inslikt. E vraagt hem om door de mond naar buiten te komen, maar Ilmarinen weigert.’ ‘Ik zal mezelf mijn eigen deur maken!’ antwoord hij, en, met de instrumenten van een smid, die hij magisch construeert, opent de maag van e heks en ontsnapt. Volgens een andere variant, was de voorwaarde die het jonge meisje telde dit Ilmarinen een grote vis zou vangen. Mar de vis slikte hem in. Hier ook weigeren d om naar onder of boven te komen, Ilmarinen roerde zo in zijn maag dat de vis barstte.

 (5) Passim: Dit mythische thema heeft een enorme verspreiding gekend, vooral in Océanië. Het is voor ons voldoend om te praten over een Polynesische variant. De boot van de held Nganaoa was opgeslokt door een soort van walvis, maar de held, greep zich de mast, en stak die in de mond van de walvis om deze tot rust te laten komen. Vervolgens, daalde hij af in de nacht van het monster, waar hij zijn beide ouders vond, nog steeds levend. Ngaanao stak ar een vuur aan, dood de walvis en stapte uit de bek. / De buik van een zeemonster vertegenwoordigt, net als het lichaam van de chthonische godin, de ingewanden van de aarde, het koninkrijk van de doden, de onderwereld. De onderwereld wordt vaak verbeeld onder de vorm van een enorm monster dat waarschijnlijk het prototype is van de Bijbelse leviathan. Wij kenen nu een serie parallelle beelden: de buik van een reuzin, die van een godin, van een zeemonster, symboliseren de chthonische meesteres, de kosmische nacht, het koninkrijk van de doden. Levend penetreren in een gigantisch lichaam, staat gelijk aan het afdalen in de hel. Om de beproevingen onder ogen te zien, die voor de doden zijn gereserveerd. De initiatie betekenis van dit type van afdalen in de hel is duidelijk, Hij die geloofde in een dergelijk wapenfeit geloofde niet langer inde dood, hij veroverde een gigantisch inwijding als die van Gilgamesch. /

 (6) Passim: Maar we moeten nog rekening houden met een ander element: het voorbije is ook de plaats van wetenschap en wijsheid. De heer van de onderwereld is alwetend de doden kennen de we. In sommige mythen en sagen, daalt de held af in de onderwereld om wijsheid te verkrijgen of geheime kennis te bemachtigen. Väinämöinen kon een boot die gemaakt was met magie niet afmaken, omdat hij drie woorden miste. Om deze te leren, zal hij een beroemde tovenaar vinden, Anteror, een reus die jarenlang roerloos was gebleven tijdens zijn trance, zodat er een boom groeide uit zijn schouder en de volgens een nest in zijn bard hadden gemaakt. Vainämöinen valt in de mond van de reus en hij wordt spoedig ingeslikt. Maar, wanneer hij in de maag van Estomac valt, maakt hij een kostuum van ijzer en bedreigt de tovenaar totdat hij na lange tijd de drie magische parolen heet ververkregen die nodig zijn om de bark te maken. Maar wat Vainämöinen doet in vlees en bloed, doen de sjamanen in trance: Hen geest verlaat het lichaam en daalt af in de volgende wereld. Deze extatische reis in het hiernamaals is perfect verbeeld als een penetratie in het lichaam van een vis of een monsterlijk zeemonster. Volgens een Lapse legende maakte de zon van en sjamaan zijn vader die heel lang geslapen had, met het parool: ‘Vader, wordt wakker en kom terug uit de ingewanden van de vis!’. Waarom ondernam de sjamaan deze onderneming en deze lange extatisch reis, als het niet was om geheime kennis te verkrijgen, om de mysteries te onthullen?”

Religie, Verband met muziek

(1) Robert Graves, “The white Goddess”, Faber and Faber 1981; “The rift now separating Christianity and poetry is, indeed, the same that divided Judaism and Ashtarot-worship after the post-Exilic religious reformation. Various attempts at ridging it by the Clementine’s, Collyridians, Manicheans and other early Christina heretics and by the Virgin worshipping palmers and troubadours of Crusading times have left their mark on Church ritual and doctrine, but have always been succeeded by a strong puritanical reaction.  It has become impossible to combine the once identical functions of priest and poet without doing violence to one calling or the other, as may be seen in the works of Englishmen who have continued to write poetry after their ordination: Robert Herric, Jonathan Swift, George Crabbe, Charles Kingsley, Gerard Manly Hopkons. The poet survived in easy vigour only where the priest was shown the door”

Doodscultuur, vroege tribuutheffers, Algemeen

(1) Bruce G. Trigger, “Understanding early civilizations – A Comparative  Study”,  Cambridge University Press 2003; “People in all early civilizations believed that human beings have two broad types of souls – impersonal life-force that animated both and souls associated with intelligence and personality. These souls were assembled at or near birth and tended to separate at death but for both continued to exist. As did the god, they required sustenance form the human word to function properly both before and after death. Yet the fortunes of the dead varied form one early civilization to another. In Mesopotamia food offering merely sustained the intellect soul of the dead person, which was fathered to live n misery in the underworld, whereas elsewhere they empowered souls. In most early civilization, the dead served as intermediaries between their living descendants and the god, the souls of kings doing so on behalf of the entire society. Families feared that the souls of dead menders would punish them for misbehaviour or neglect. /

(2) Passim: It is tempting to interpret what happened to the souls of commoners after death, as understood and inferno early civilization, as a reflection of their social status during life. This would suggest that commoner in city-states; especially those that lacked hereditary nobility ought to have enjoyed a more favourable existence after death than awaited commoners in these states. Yet, among the Egyptians and Inca, the souls of communist were believed to fare better than the souls of commoners in city-states. As a result of status emulation, the beliefs of the upper classes appear to have risen rather than lowered commoners’ self-evaluation and expectations. In city-states, upper- and lower-class Yoruba, Mesopotamians, and Aztec expected less for themselves after death. The fates of dead Maya rulers, although seemingly dependent of nth results of their individual efforts to outwit the gods of the underworld, appear to have more resembled those of their counterparts in territorial states.”