Meltdown Bhāṣya: Verse 1.1.1 (Part 10)

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Yā devī sarvabhūteṣu: O thou Goddess who inhabits all beings

2. The second point to address is Nietzsche’s theory of artistic production and its supposed masculinity vis a vis the femininity of artistic reception as expressed through philosophy or critique. Here, we may concur with Land (1992b) that this is an “unstable construction”, it is not one born out of “repression” (p. 22) because it collapses into a gendered dichotomy. Rather, it is unstable because it is insufficiently gendered and fails to account for the dual role of the manly and the womanly when discussing the power of art. As we had discussed in the Introduction, the Devi Vāk (‘Speech’) or Sarasvatī (‘The Flowing One’) is responsible for the ability of language (one shared by all living beings, not just humans, mind). In contrast to Burroughs’ (1962) claim that “Language is a virus from outer space”, we maintain instead that Speech is a weapon from the heavens. A great deal has been written about the supposed theatricality and performative nature of Vedic rituals, wherein the priests appear to step into the roles of the gods in reenergizing and reincarnating eternal myth in mundane space. Sadly, too few, it seems, have looked at actual Hindu theatre and the ways in which it achieves the immanetization of the transcendent. Thankfully, we have the invaluable work of the blogger at mAnasa-taraMgiNI, whose post ‘Why rasa? where did Arya and yavana nATaka diverge?’ (Jun. 12, 2011) does just this. In this post, the blogger explores the Nāṭyaśāstra1. As he explains, Hindu theatre is inextricable from the context of the Vedic yajña, and as several scholars have remarked, the layout of the performance-hall (nāṭyaśālā) strongly parallels that of the sacrifice-hall (yāgaśālā), with the fiend-slaying jarjari staff of Indra standing in as a symbol of the sacrificial-pillar (yūpa). As the blogger points out, the text of the Nāṭyaśāstra explicitly equates the performance of the drama to the performance of the sacrifice. Perhaps the most relevant detail of the construction of the theater is the fact that Indra-deva protects the hero of the play and Sarasvatī-devī the heroine. It would not be difficult to draw a parallel between this practice and the verses in the Vedic texts which call her the consort of Indra (Aitareya Āraṇyaka 3.1.6). Indeed, as mentioned in the Introduction, we had cited Rao (2017) who identifies the Devī as the primal waters preceding creation on the basis of references to her in the Ṛg-Veda. We can see a possible example of this in the hundredth sūktam of the eighth maṇḍala, which is dedicated primarily to Indra-deva. Rather intriguingly, the ninth ṛk says that Indra-deva’s “thunderbolt lies in the midst of the sea, covered with the waters” (RV 8.100.9), before engaging in a praise of Vāk-devī in the next two ṛks, where she is called “the queen”, who, when she “sits down (in sacrifice)”, utters “things not to be understood” (RV 8.100.10). She was “produced” (or begat) by the gods (RV 8.100.11), and, according to Sāyaṇa-ācārya and Yāska-ācārya, she, in the form of thunder, enters into all animals or living beings by ‘sitting down’, which means turning into the rain which then flows to the sun or earth. Language is inextricably tied to life itself, even if it can also be thought of as ‘invading’ the Materium from elsewhere. The Vedas also ask: “May the armed [pāvīravī] and thundering (voice of mid-heaven), the upholder of heaven, Aja Ekapād, the ocean, the waters of the firmament, the universal gods and Sarasvatī, accompanied by sacred rites, and abundant wisdom, hear my words.” (RV 10.65.13). As we noted in the Introduction, Yāska’s explanation of this statement is that Indra is the armed [pāvīravī] deity, whose javelin [pāvī] is also divine speech, which is thundering [tanyatur]. Nietzsche’s error is in taking artistic production to be a damming up of intake and a simultaneous opening of outflow. The Gods shatter the holdfasts of the water-stealing serpent and split open the cave of his brother, the cattle-thief, annihilating all blockages with bolt and flame. The other issue is Nietzsche’s theory of the nature of artistic production. Despite our distaste for the contagion model of creativity, we do concur that there is a sense in which craft, like speech, does enter the craftsman from without. Eliot (1919) invites the reader of his critical essay to consider, “as a suggestive analogy, the action which takes place when a bit of finely filiated platinum is introduced into a chamber containing oxygen and sulphur dioxide” (emotions and feelings), thereby catalyzing a chemical reaction producing “sulphurous acid” — a reaction made possible only through the presence of the platinum shard (the poet’s mind), yet one whose byproduct contains no trace of the catalyst. The platinum mind of the poet is composed of the tradition that he belongs to:

“…if we approach a poet without this prejudice [for novelty or originality] we shall often find that not only the best, but the most individual parts of his work may be those in which the dead poets, his ancestors, assert their immortality most vigorously.”

This ‘tradition’ is not, as Eliot is quick to remind us, simple adherence to forms and ways gone by. Rather, it is only won through “great labour” and is deeply concerned with the development of a “historical sense [which] involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence”. It is something which “compels” a man to write with the deep feeling of his predecessors. According to Eliot, this is meant to make the poet closely aware of his place in time, not engage in anachronism. There is an element of hyperstition to Eliot’s theory of literary production, which is best expressed by the statement that:

“The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them. The existing order is complete before the new work arrives; for order to persist after the supervention of novelty, the whole existing order must be, if ever so slightly, altered; and so the relations, proportions, values of each work of art toward the whole are readjusted; and this is conformity between the old and the new. Whoever has approved this idea of order, of the form of European, of English literature will not find it preposterous that the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past.”

Eliot’s thoughts give us a great deal of insight into the creative process, especially with regards to the part that is the domain of the human agent. It even begins to reach into the superhuman when explaining how it is that history almost possesses the poet in order to create poetry. And, his assertion that a great deal of striving is necessary in order to be able to become aware of this history and one’s place in it is unquestionably true. He does not, however, go far enough.

Certainly, the artist serves to immanentize transcendent forces beyond mortal reckoning, but he alone is not enough to catalyze a reaction unless it is a purely critical one which produces an acidic, all-dissolving critique which is more akin to the chemical reaction which Eliot analogizes artistic production to. There is another analogy which Eliot’s platinum filament mind suits even better than his own: that of a light bulb. Though the metal wire may appear to perform the task of bringing light out of the darkness, it is in truth naught but the mortal channel through which the unhindered flows of divine power run. The mind can work to cleanse itself of any impurities that can serve as an impediment to making seen that light through the “great labour” of tapas, but it cannot flick the switch on its own. Similarly, the filament (the poet’s mind) itself cannot produce the power of the divine necessary for the production of art, regardless of how pure. Instead, it is only when that current enters into one from the will of a being outside oneself that art begins to flow forth. Like śaktipāta, their ability is dependent both on the Grace of the Divine and capacity of the mortal to take it in, in whatever weight. A blockage on either side would only result in utter destruction of the artist, and not in the manner that Eliot describes.

Lastly, one must keep in mind that the Vedic worldview also possesses an economic aspect — one that is especially dependent on the concept of Ṛṇa (‘debt’). The Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa specifies 4 debts: to the Devas (‘gods’), Ṛṣis (‘seers’), Pitṛs (‘forefathers’), and to his fellow Men, each of which must be discharged through various means, such as sacrifice, Vedic study, producing offspring, and practicing hospitality respectively (SBr 1.7.2.1-5).

3. There is not much to add to Land’s (1992b) critique of Christianity here beyond saying that it seems like the sort of critique that could only come out of a Christian context.

4. When Land (1992b) says that the point of eternal recurrence is at the limit which “patriarchal productivism” has set for itself, he is, in a sense, more true than perhaps even he knows. The cosmos and the cosmic order has been constructed and maintained by a chain of fathers — the Prajāpatis we spoke of earlier. Perhaps the two most relevant here are Brahmā-deva, the father of life and the demiurge, whose days (kalpa) are measured in cycles of repeated cosmic creation and dissolution, and Manu-mahārāja, the father of Mankind, whose ‘patriarchate’ (manvantara), so to speak, spans seventy-one cycles of the four ages (caturyuga), each filled with uncountable human civilizations, all rising and falling in their turn.

We posit that the fundamental error in Land’s philosophy is the overweighting of impersonal desire to the exclusion of its personal nature. While there is an impersonal aspect to desire, as we can understand through Kāma-deva’s byname ananga (lit. ‘limbless’), this impersonality is only one way of being among several. In time, Kāma-deva was born again as an earthly hero bearing the name of Pradyumna, The Most Mighty. Each of them came forth from the Holy Mother, Śrī, who Herself is always at one with the “seed-giving father” (bīja pradah pitā, BG 14.4) of the world, Śrīman Nārāyaṇa. Impersonal, undirected desire is indeed that aspect of it which drives us forth over and over again through the wheel of saṁsāra, but impersonal desire is not primordial Desire, whose conscious will is what truly allows for the world to differentiate itself from base matter into multiplicity. Then, rather than drawing a distinction between accumulation and squandering, we can see that spending and saving are both different stages of the same process, in which material reality is invested with motion by the Divine before inevitably entering into its maw to be eaten up whole — only to then be reborn in a new form.

5. Land (1992b) says:

1. Becoming a woman is to depart from reality, but reality drifts upon zero and can be endlessly abandoned.

2. The unconscious is lesbian and thus it is full of desires to become woman through return.

Indeed, Land is correct that reality can always be abandoned — and, in fact, it frequently is. Waves and flames regularly dissolve and destroy the world. None of this, however, is a reason to abandon it. Though Land takes a dim view of reasons, which is to say, of telos, or purpose, collapse and entropy are of the inherent telos of matter. No course of action that any mortal agent chooses can alter this fate. Neither can one delay its demise nor hasten its decline. In thus attempting to abandon reality, one merely remains in place. As we have elaborated earlier, no single life’s actions are sufficient to bring about wealth or artistic creation. It is only the will of something on the Outside that allows such phenomena to become manifest in time and space.

Lastly, even if masculinity is a “bunk hole from death”, it is, nevertheless, a most brilliant one, shining with all the splendour of the two suns. Our fathers gather in the kingdom of King Yama, won by him through his brave sacrifice that he may be the first to walk the paths of death, thereby making the way for all others to follow. Long may he reign.

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