Krishna’s Dharma: Deconstructing and Reconstructing, Arjuna and Us
December 19, 2007
Religious texts are volatile. The unpredictable and evocative energy within religious texts provokes believing interpreters to give up their lives for others, and at other times take the lives of others. The Bhagavad-Gita, a poetic interlude within the mythical epic the Mahabharata, is not immune to these diabolically opposed exegetical potentials. The Gita takes up many of the thematic conundrums found in the Mahabharata, but most notably the Gita illustrates the concept of dharma using god-like figures and figurative rhetoric. Sanskrit scholar Barbara Miller mentions in her translation of the Gita that dharma, “stems from the root word drh, ‘to sustain.’ A concept of complex significance in Indian culture, its basic meaning is ‘that which sustains’”(158). Simple enough, right? The complex ambiguity of Krishna’s dharma within the Gita and how it challenged Arjuna within the Mahabharata’s context has been the source of exegetical debate since the Gita’s conception. Two millenniums later, spiritual, political, and academic interpretations of the Gita still bloom; dharma cannot be ignored as every person, every kingdom, must face the question: How is appropriate inter-action to take place?
Considered an ancient text, the Gita contains many teachings of Krishna that sound all too familiar with rhetoric of current politicians and religious leaders. Krishna’s call to “wage this war of sacred duty” (2.33) is, seemingly, similar to President Bush’s reaction to those behind the World Trade Center towers’ destruction: “Given the nature and reach of our enemies, we will win this conflict…by meeting a series of challenges with determination and will and purpose” (Lincoln 100). Why turn to this religious text within a socio-historical context such as ours when religion is accused of being the source of so much violence? The answer is in Krishna’s re-visioning of dharma that is found in the Gita—a re-visioning that takes readers beyond the surface scenes within the Gita to reach a dharma that is for Arjuna then, and our present. Furthermore, exploring Krishna’s dharmic teachings for a world-age where adharma is rampant might enable suggestive re-visioning for today. It is to the Song of the Lord, and the Lord of Song, to which we, as a collective Arjuna, now turn.
Now is as Good as Then: Krishna Re-Appearing.
Hinduism assumes that the cosmos is involved in a continuous cycle of creation and destruction (Gita 9.7), and Krishna’s dharma re-visioning is said to materialize when adharma settles in, when “chaos prevails”(4.7). These periods of adharma are known in the Hindu cosmology as Kaliyuga, which Heinrich Zimmer elucidates as follows: “Egoistic, devouring, blind and reckless elements now are triumphant and rule the day. Kali means the worst of anything; also, ‘strife, quarrel, dissension, war, battle’” (15). Krishna’s dharma is absolutely essential for this period, otherwise destruction and chaos would prevail (Gita 3.23-35). This fits within the larger context of the Mahabharata, as the Gita is situated immediately prior to the Pandavas and Kurus warring one another. That is, Krishna’s re-visioning of dharma is performed in that sacred scene of adharma, where wars over “sacred duty” take place (1.1).
The appearance of “Krishna” is enigmatic and tricky in itself. “Krishna” is put in quotation marks because clarification of what is meant by this term is needed. It is asserted here, emphatically so, that “Krishna” is a personified archetypal force that is conceptualized in anthropomorphic imagery, referring to what Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj suggests as, “… the indwelling principle within you—the atman, which is given various names” (137). This “indwelling principle” is expanded in the Gita as the indwelling spirit exists within all of nature as it does in humanity: “Learned men see with an equal eye a scholarly and dignified priest, a cow, an elephant, a dog, and even an outcaste scavenger” (Gita 5.18, cf. 13.3, 15.13-15). That is, the world-soul (brahman) and human-soul (atman) are intricately intertwined in matters of dharma for, if dharma is to sustain, then the entire cosmos must function harmoniously in order for nature and humanity to sustain and be sustained. “All this around me, and my own existence—experience within and without—are the warp and woof of the subtle fabric”(Zimmer, 26). This “subtle fabric” appears—in image and teaching—in breath taking and, seemingly, odd fashion in the Gita and throughout history, in different countries, figures and names.
The oddity of such perennial materialization, however, is due to the nature of its context; that is, the peculiar dharma forcefully appears when adharma is rampant. Krishna is notorious in Hindu mythology for disrupting social norms and notoriously well loved for doing so. Discussing Hindu stories that involve the thievery of Krishna, John Hawley notes that, “Krishna doesn’t use force, but his skill in stealing away what people hold dear is unparalleled; and he doesn’t kill, but he manages to unburden people of their ordinary lives” (163). As Ruth Katz points out, Krishna’s character in the Gita is marked as, “…a playful trickster…Krishna’s trickery implies an open defiance of traditional morality…” (241). Arjuna’s dilemma, to defend dharma (1.37), is seen in his reticence to kill his fellow kinsmen (1.28-31). Deciphering dharma is tricky when adharma is rife, let alone when family is involved. It is only fitting that Krishna would be seen as a trickster in a period that is replete with disorder and evil; truth, peace, and acceptance are certainly antithetical to social norms in such periods. It is not surprising, then, to see that Krishna’s presence in the Gita functions as a shocking implosion of Arjuna’s presuppositions. It takes a persona such as Krishna—or Jesus, Ghandi, Martin Luther King, et cetera—to awaken dharma, reverse social adharma and re-verse perennial truths that lead to restoration (4.8).
Krishna’s reorienting of Arjuna’s disillusionment takes up more than just the convoluted confusion of whether to engage in war; according to the Gita, the fundamental purpose of dharma is, “To protect men of virtue and destroy men who do evil” (4.8). The enactment of dharma is the internal renunciation of all fruits from action (2.55, 2.71, 5.21) and the carrying out of one’s personal dharma (2.31, 2.33) for the sake of social and cosmic welfare (3.11-16). As Jacqueline Hirst says in her contribution to The Fruits of Our Desiring: “Order in human society is, from the beginning, grounded in cosmic order and taught as such” (52). Arjuna is told to give up his previously embraced notion of dharma and find solace in the dharmic re-presenter who appears in Kaliyuga periods (18.66). For Arjuna, in the larger context of the Mahabharata, this meant seeing through his attachment for his kinsmen and performing actions that seemed all together adharmic. To see through such horrific scenes is never easily accepted, as Krishna must repeat himself time and again for Arjuna to renounce the attachments that are seemingly normative when performing actions (examples—2.15, 2.22, 2.48, 2.55).
Set in the mythical context of the Mahabharata, the Gita presents this dharmic dilemma in hyperbolic settings so as to portray the difficulty in ascertaining how to uphold dharma. The Gita should be seen, however, more like a springboard than a bed to snuggle into, for the Gita and its dharmic teachings should be understood as recontextualizing previously held dharmic perspectives. Dharma, then, is a fluid concept and allows its applicability to twist and turn given the context in which it is being ascertained. Krishna’s archetypal reappearances and re-visioning is summed up by Ruth Katz: “God, then, is seen as the protector of dharma even as he acts within the yuga structure, changing with the shifting environment” (231). Krishna then will appear quite differently than Krishna now, but there will be an aura of familiarity, which will be spelled out later.
Speed up two millenniums. Today, Western culture is inundated with so much “war” rhetoric—from the war on drugs to the war on terrorism—that Michael Hadley writes, “War, in short, is now a ‘way of being’” (190). Put simply, since 9/11 the West’s mythic perception is constructed by a notion that took place on September 11th, 2001: we are at war—militarily, economically, ethnically, and religiously. The evening news is sated with vivid images of violence, chaos, and hatred—at home and abroad. All the news reports confirm Zimmer’s definition of Kaliyuga, the age of adharma, the age when, supposedly, Krishna’s revelatory dharma is suppose to manifest.
Krishna’s Re-Visioning
Dharma, according to the Gita’s Krishna, is the detachment approach to reality where individual, social, and international boundaries are transcended (3.7, 3.25, 4.10, 5.11). As stated above, Arjuna’s dharmic visioning was deconstructed and the restructured dharma is one where brahman and atman are intimately interconnected. Within this interconnectivity, though, the individual is not lost. As Krishna is quoted in 3.35, “Your own duty done imperfectly is better than another man’s done well. It is better to die in one’s own duty; another man’s duty is perilous” (cf. 18.47). Thus, when Krishna admonishes Arjuna to “Look to [his] own duty” (2.31) and to “stand up and resolve to fight the battle!” (2.37), Krishna is upholding the warrior’s dharmic role while redefining Arjuna’s presumption of social dharma. Individual duty and social duty are not so cleanly dichotomized in such re-visioning. In fact, while non-attachment to consequences is Krishna’s advice, this does not infer an amoral or entirely relativistic ethic. Nicholas Sutton notes that, “…it is only right action that is to be executed without desire” and the continuance of this is, “…entirely to do with the welfare of this world” (329). Thus, non-attachment is explicitly concerned with nourishing this tangible world, verses a transcendental world, and the non-attached motive is to be enacted in behavior that has trans-personal consequences.
Like the unity that exists as multiplicities, and the multiplicities that form unity (11.5-7, 13.30, 14.4, 18.20), the specificity of “non-attachment” and “right action” is ambiguously applicable. Thus, the Gita’s context makes Krishna’s admonition to fight understandable. To read this too literalistic, though, is to miss the point. The point is that dharmic re-visioning consists in disrupting the Kaliyuga disruption as a means of seeing clearly, of seeing through to the welfare of the world (12.4, 12.12). The Gita presents Arjuna seeking the council of Krishna as Arjuna questions how such a horrendous crime against honor in warring against family can be committed (1.34, 37). Arjuna’s difficulty is not only in killing his kinsmen, but this is coupled with the fact that to do so would be antithetical to his sense of dharma, the underlying order of the cosmos that is to be harmoniously engaged with. Hence, Krishna’s advice is ultimately directed towards the following: how to exist and engage with the order that sustains the cosmos—both on social and individual, macro and microcosmic levels. The vague applicability of dharma calls for constant conscious awareness of one’s historical context and how to behave in a dharmic manner, a manner that is fundamentally concerned with the sustenance of the world at large.
Krishna, Dharma, and…Us?
To insert a concept like dharma in a postmodern, post-9/11 world—rife with chaos, pluralism, and violence—is capable by the very nature of Krishna’s visionary re-visioning found within the Gita. As Jacqueline Hirst notes, “[The Gita] may ask us…to go beyond our initial understandings of dharma, discarding or recontextualizing them as we go, to that which is truly dharmic” (55). What is dharmic has been repeatedly summarized with “sustaining the welfare of the world.” Considering the nuclear, environmental, ethnical, and biological threats facing the modern world, it would do well to offer some suggestive ways of recontextualizing dharma in our own Kaliyuga.
Literalistic readings of the Gita are, unfortunately, all too popular in recent and contemporary history. It is well known that the Gita was dear to Richard Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb. Mark Juergensmeyer notes that members of the Hindu Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Hindu nationalist party, the BJP have defended several acts of violence by quoting from the Gita (95). The Gita is far from being an exception in matters of violent religious interpretations. The rise of current religious violence is coupled with an intense upsurge of globalization, providing a contemporary scene where national and hemispherical boundaries are transcended daily.
The sustaining of one country ultimately depends on the sustenance of other countries in relation—economically, ecologically, politically, and in matters of human rights. Krishna’s restructuring of Arjuna’s concept of dharma is, for readers today, an international—indeed a cosmic—restructuring. Contemporarily, Arjuna is seen in each individual, and as a collective whole, as there is collective hope for a Krishna re-visioning that enables each country to establish dharma nationally and internationally—those two so inherently entwined in our day. Problems arise, though, when the order that is sought is re-visioned in such a radical way that it implodes the anticipatory expectations clung to. While there are many examples of contemporary adharma in our Kaliyuga, a suggestive dharmic re-visioning towards the cacophonic relationship between the West and the Middle East will be focused on. This indicatory re-visioning will explore how the dharmic teachings in the Gita might provide insight for a world where the field of dharma is truly cosmic in scale. If such re-visioning does not take place, Agni might make an appearance in a nuclear way that would truly put an end to the chaos—once and for all.
As noted above, individual dharma is to function conjointly with cosmic dharma to “lead to freedom” (Gita 11.5) and is for “sustaining this entire world” (10.42). Unfortunately, since its imperialistic inception the West has characteristically been demonic: “[the West has said] I have gained this wish today, and I shall attain that one; this wealth is mine, and there will be more. I have killed the enemy, and I shall kill others too; I am the lord, I am the enjoyer, successful, strong, and happy.” (16.13-14). The West, specifically America, flourishes in its economical surplus and political might, all the while sustaining an adharmic identity that caricaturizes “divine traits that lead to freedom” (16.5). Focusing entirely on the interests of sustaining our national welfare, the United States has failed to harmonize its dharma with global dharma. Such national-centrism has resulted in a Kaliyuga that infiltrates in nearly every darkened corner of the world.
Since the Gulf War of 1991, the United States has sustained harsh sanctions on Iraq, “…which [have] caused widespread misery, including the deaths of over half a million Iraqi children, [and] were ‘worth the cost,’ as U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright famously put it” (Loy 96). The following list, far from exhaustive, exhibits the overwhelming adharma enacted by the U.S. government:
…in 1965, the United States sponsored or assisted a military coup
in Indonesia that involved the deaths of over half a million people…
in the year 2001 alone the United States refused to join 123 other nations
in banning the use of production of antipersonnel bombs and mines…
Bush declared the Kyoto global warming protocol “dead” and refused
to participate in revising it, because that might harm the U.S. economy…
the United States was the only nation to oppose the U.N. Agreement to
Curb the International Flow of Illicit Small Arms…In addition, the
United States ha not ratified the Comprehensive (Nuclear) Test Ban
Treaty, signed by 164 nations but opposed by Bush (Loy105).
Given the unavoidable globalization that is in motion, the question is not whether or not the West should be internationally involved. The question is: what is the West’s dharmic role to enable international harmony where each country focuses on its own dharmic responsibility (Gita 3.35, 18.47) in such a way that will bring global peace (12.12)? In a country that promotes its motto as “liberty and justice for all”, violence has been the action taken in hopes of securing this nationalistic attachment. Two and a half centuries after America’s inauguration, two and a half centuries of working towards liberty and justice for all, the one thing that has been attained without failure has been violence—within and without national borders.
The Gita provides a disarming portrait of dharma. Recall that dharma essentially means “that which sustains” (Miller 158). In the wake of our Kaliyuga, the destruction of the cosmos has never been more perceivable and there are no lacking options that can be taken to actualize this. Violence has proven, it would seem, to be ineffective in creating global dharma. Hence, what if what the Mahabharata calls the highest dharma, that of ahimsa (non-violence), were attempted? What if the re-contextualizing of dharma in our age was to retract from our nationalistic attachments and seek a global dharma where countries work together for peace, compassion, and sustenance for all creatures (Gita, 12.4, 12.12-13)? Contemporarily, re-visioning dharma would call for a global paradigm shift, one where nuclear, military, and imperialistic weapons of mass destruction implode on themselves along with the present adharmic vision that poses itself as dharmic.
Concluding…for now.
In the Mahabharata Arjuna follows Krishna’s advice and the Pandavas defeat the Kurus. However, the Gita is ambiguous as to who or what Arjuna is to fight. This ambiguity is heightened considering Krishna’s teachings of how brahman and atman are so intricately intertwined, thus one should treat all creatures equally (4.35, 5.7, 6.29-32, 13.28). Who then is Arjuna to fight? “Great Warrior, kill the enemy menacing you in the form of desire!” (3.43). Arjuna then, and Arjuna now, is to fight against desires of attachment. The attachment of the West to attain nationalistic ideals while ignoring international needs is analogous to the short-sided disillusionment of Arjuna that Krishna deconstructs. To promote non-violence in an age of extreme violence would certainly be tricky, but the warning signs seen on every 6 o’clock evening news report suggest that such trickery is imperative if our world is to be sustained.
The entire scenario is left to interpretation, and the Gita, like any ancient extant text, has its fair share of interpretations. The current international situation will have future historians performing their own interpretations of how dharma was incorporated, and sadly often ignored in our Kaliyuga. A re-appearance of Krishna is most certainly needed, but are we willing to embody Krishna today? This exploration opened with a question, implying a need for an answer. The answer just might lay in the questioning – by breaking the bonds of present attachments, the West can enable questioning to happen, which will open up opportunities to view things anew. This question must first be addressed: Is the West willing to actually question their current sense of dharma? May the evening news’ one day report, like that of Sanjaya, that there was rejoicing, for dharma was actualized in an adharmic age. May history say, on a global scale, that for a time, “fortune, victory, abundance, and morality [did] exist” (18.78).
Works Cited
Hadley, Michael. “The Ascension of Mars and the Salvation of the Modern World.” The Twenty-first Century Confronts Its Gods: Globalization, Technology, and War. Ed. David J. Hawking. Albany: State University of New York, 2004. 189-208.
Hawley, John Stratton. “The Thief in Krishna.” The Inner Journey: Views from the Hindu Tradition. Ed. Margaret H. Case. Sandpoint, ID: Morning Light Press, 2007. 162-171.
Juergensmeyer, Mark. Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious
Violence. Los Angeles and London: University of California, 2000.
Katz, Ruth. Arjuna in the Mahabharata: Where Krishna Is, There Is Victory.
Columbia, SC: South Carolina UP, 1989.
Lincoln, Bruce. Holy Terror: Thinking About Religion After September 11.
Chicago and London: University of Chicago, 2003.
Loy, David R. “The West Against the Rest? A Buddhist Response to The Clash of Civilizations. The Twenty-first Century Confronts Its Gods: Globalization, Technology, and War. Ed. David J. Hawking. Albany: State University of New York, 2004. 95-110.
Hirst, Jacqueline. “Upholding the World: Dharma in the Bhagavadgita.” The Fruits of Our Desiring: An Enquiry into the Ethics of the Bhagavadgita For Our Times. Ed. Julius Lipner. Calgary: Bayeux Arts, 1997. 48-63.
Maharaj, Sri Nisargadatta. The Nectar of Immortality: Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj’s Discourses on the Etnernal. Ed. Robert Powell. San Diego: Blue Dove Press, 1996.
Miller, Barbara Stoller, trans. The Bhagavad-Gita: Krishna’s Counsel in Time of
War. New York: Bantam Dell, rpt. 2004.
Sutton, Nicholas. Religious Doctrines in the Mahabharata. Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 2000.
Zimmer, Heinrich. Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization. Ed. Joseph
Campbell. Princeton: Princeton UP, rpt. 1974.
The Absence of an Archetype: Looking Beyond Oedipus and Jesus
December 18, 2007
The mythology of the West is as celestial and infinite as there are celestial bodies in the infinite cosmos. To elevate one over the other is a judgmental endeavor, for with selection comes a simultaneous omission. Regardless of this, it can safely be asserted that within the mythologies of the West two notably stand out (though not necessarily above): the myths of Oedipus of Thebes and Jesus of Nazareth. These two figures are by and large two of the most widely discussed figures—mythically and historically—throughout Western history, and they will occupy our time once again. Fusing these two characters’ stories together will provide insight to how the infanticide and patricide within Oedipus’ and Jesus’ stories are imagistic portrayals of how archetypal forces can never been fully signified through the re-presenting symbol embodying archetypal energy. That is, this interpretative exploration will unveil how the West’s fascination of the symbolic characters in these foundational myths have left us longing for more, longing for an Antigone to bury the literalistic-short-sighted-mentality that has long governed the Western mind.
Criticisms of Oedipus and Jesus are commonplace in the depth-psychology movement, yet a critical look at the paralleling features of infanticide and patricide and the redeeming qualities within this murderous scheme has yet to be exercised. The vast chasm of time and culture that separates these myths is joined not through an interpretative bridge, but by starting from each side of the gorge and journeying to each myth’s depth. When one reaches this depth, it becomes obvious that there is a brook that runs through the quarry, and it is in the brook we must trod; these stories can guide us to life-nourishing water for the soul, if we so choose to baptize ourselves in its depths.
Marked differences exist between the nature of these stories. Information regarding the socio-historical context of Oedipus’ scene is overly lacking, while there is several extant documents and a mass of historical work done on the context of Jesus’ story. Oedipus is mostly looked to as a mythical figure, while Jesus is looked to as both historical and mythical, depending on one’s predispositions. Oedipus’ parents are explicitly noted as being biological (Roche, 69-70), while Jesus’ biological background is hidden behind a mythical birth narrative (Matt. 1.18-5). These discontinuities, and many more, exist and deserve attention, though not specifically ours; to do so would mislead the direction being taken here. These two myths of the West collide and coincide in a similar archetypal fashion that must be taken seriously if we are to take our myths seriously.
The stories begin on their own side of the gaping gap: in Oedipus the King Apollo prophecies Oedipus killing his father Laius (Roche 24); in John’s gospel YHWH sent his only son, Jesus, to die for the sins of humanity (John 3.16). Oedipus is predicted to kill his father, while Jesus is brought into the world to be killed by his “father”. The forecast for these two figures seems opposite, however they share the storm of infanticide. That each story has infanticide and patricide demands that attention be given to this parent-child relationship and what that divine relationship infers. Before jumping that far, though, it needs to be asked: Why is it that each story has a son as the paradigmatic character and not the parent? What does the need for a son suggest?
The need for a son: the absence of a father
Oedipus and Jesus enter their given stories with an identity of being sons. Oedipus is most often viewed only as the son of Laius. This seems understandable considering that most of the interpretative work has focused on the infanticide/patricide events that take place between Oedipus and Laius. However, there is reason to believe that Oedipus’ social status as tyrranos would create a new socio-political identity that involved a divine father-son relationship. Early in the Oedipus play, Oedipus is regarded as the one who is “the leader of men and consummate atoner to the powers above” (Roche 24). That is, while Oedipus is not necessarily equal with the gods, he nevertheless knows, unlike any other human, how to use the powers of the gods. This less-than-godlike stature is questioned later in the play when the chorus questions Oedipus’ origination: “Who was your mother child? Which of the dryads, Perennially young, did Pan of the mountains have? Or was it Apollo haunting high Savannas?” (66). In his Oedipus and the Fabrication of the Father, Pietro Pucci suggests that, “…Oedipus is not simply favored by the gods but their son; now his solution of the Sphinx’s riddle becomes easy to explain. He descends from Apollo” (130). Oedipus’ social identity derives not only from his biological father Laius, but as one who comes from and represents Apollo. Jesus shares this dual identity in that his is one that is identified as the son of Joseph (Matt. 1.16) and YHWH (John 3.16).
This is not surprising. In the ancient world those who were recognized as king, whether that kingship be official (Oedipus) or subversive (Jesus), were often socially recognized as a son of god, an agent by who god would work through to exercise his reign on earth; a tangible, imaginary as it is, combination of heaven on earth. It is common knowledge in classical studies that Octavius Augustus was not only emperor, but was in fact believed to be Zeus’ agent to bring peace (Crossan, God and Empire 107-8, 147-48). H. J. Rose comments that the Hellenistic period was, “…a time when the deifying of kings was a commonplace, often hardly more than a piece of formal loyalty” (383). The theology of the ancient world was seen not only in their stories and writings, but in how society practiced their imperial-theology. It is suggested, then, that given the suggestive statements mentioned above in each story it is highly likely that these leaders of nation, city, or revolutionary band of renegades were interpreted as embodied representatives by which the god of their nation, city, or group would act through. Put in depth-psychological terms, this given person was acknowledged as truly living out an archetypal force that was socially acknowledged as paradigmatic, authoritative, and, as will be shown later, unfortunately worshiped.
Hence, according to the stories as they are preserved in their textual form, Apollo and YHWH designate particular males in the earthly scene as a son, and it is the son that represents the father. To offer a representation of one’s self suggests that the actual figure is absent, or at least perceived to be so, hence the son functions as the offered symbol. The historical scene for Sophocles’ Oedipus and Christianity’s Jesus are analogous, and these scenes unveil a similar need for a symbol, a son, to re-present a way of being in the world that provided a paradigm specifically pertinent for those historical moments. Before venturing into the paradigmatic nature of each character, it is beneficial here to recap the historical situation in which these stories were presented.
Oedipus and Jesus in Context
To speak of the historical matrix of Oedipus is futile, for there is little to no extant evidence supporting the historical figure of Oedipus, much less the socio-historical milieu. Sophocles, then, is the beginning point for understanding the context behind Oedipus, for it is Sophocles’ who is telling this story in a particular way that will speak to a particular audience in a specific historical time. Sophocles’ play of Oedipus was offered to Greece shortly after the plague of 430BCE. The effects of this plague were not only agricultural and social devastation, but psychologically as well. As Christine Downing notes, the plague, coupled with the social and political disruptions, created “a period of transition, turmoil, and war” (284). Athens was a city-state of confusion; social structures were being deconstructed and human understanding regarding man’s rational responsibilities and the intervention of divine activity were deeply interrogated. The character Oedipus, then, served as a signifier in the absence of Apollo, the absence of a father, and, “…when the figure of the father is felt to be absent, unable to present itself with his law…then the society is endangered; then confusion and chaos ensue” (Pucci, 4). The father Apollo being absent, seen in Athenian disruption, signifies for the need to send a symbol (Oedipus) to re-present Apollo.
The social scenes of Jesus’ entry are similar to what we find in 5th century BCE Athens. John Crossan presents example after example of Jewish revolution and riotousness during the 1st century BCE and CE in Crossan’s The Historical Jesus: the Life of a Mediterranean Jew (168-206). Rome exercised its fierce imperialistic power over Judean territory and this presented the Jewish nation with social, political, and theological frustration. If Israel was the nation of YHWH, and YHWH was the one true God, how was it that Jews were enslaved once again as if they were in Egypt? And now it was in their own country?! The lack of political rule by Jewish religious leaders immediately gave way to existential and social insecurity in matters of finding favor with YHWH. With this background in mind, Jesus should be viewed, like Oedipus, as a symbol embodying an archetypal force (YHWH) to signify how one was to restore the presence of the father in a time when the presence of YHWH was altogether questioned. In both cases the embodying agent offers blessings and a new mode of existence, not only through their lives, but in and through their deaths.
Infanticide: signifier’s death wish on its on sign
James Hillman suggests in he and Kerenyi’s Oedipus Variations that infanticide “is a mythic manner of imagining literalism” (125). Hillman takes this notion and applies it to Laius and Oedipus’ relationship; however, why would Apollo prophesy patricide when this would in turn cause Laius to react as he did? Why would YHWH send his one and only son in to the world (and, recall that this divine conception nearly caused Joseph to leave the Mary) only to kill him? Hillman’s proposed notion can be extended beyond his particular application, as the death wish on the child stems not only from a biological father (as in the case of Laius), but also a metaphysical father. That is, it is in its nature for the archetypal energy to make itself known, and it resorts to iconic imagery (a son) to signify its nature. The archetype is seen through the symbol, but the archetypal force refuses to be literalized; therefore, the symbolizing character must certainly literally die, less the energy the character embodies be misconstrued as actually belonging to the characters themselves. It is proposed here that the West’s foundational myths are communicating this, in subversive and divine ways.
In each story, the archetypal force is certainly experienced through the iconic son, as Oedipus and Jesus both acquire hero-like status amongst their contemporaries. The townspeople of Thebes look to Oedipus, “leader of men and consummate atoner to the powers above” (Roche 24), to bring healing to their famished lands. Likewise, “The news about [Jesus] spread throughout all Syria; and they brought to him all who were ill… and he healed them. Large crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan” (Matt. 4.24-25). Things seem to be moving along nicely. Each figure establishes himself as a worthy leader and does what he can to bring healing to those who seek. However, modern interpreters prove that modern seekers do not often find what they often seek in either figure—a true inversion of Jesus’ “seek and you will find” (Matt. 7.7).
Oedipus and Jesus were both paradigmatic characters that were to be symbols of an archetypal signifier, they were not to be taken literally. Both were to represent, to re-present, the image of their given god, yet in each case their supposed re-presentation is literalized as the representation and the iconic nature of the son is lost. Followers of Oedipus and Jesus make an idol out of an icon and consequently miss the archetypal presentation potentially held within the characters. Hillman suggests that it is the Apollonic archetype itself that causes the literalism of Oedipus and his followers. It is being argued here, on the other hand, that it is the followers that literalize the symbols, not that literalism is inherently involved in the archetypal energy within the West’s foundational mythic figures.
Patricide: Use the force, not the image.
Sophocles never says what happens to Thebes; interpreters are left only to their own conjecture. What is known is that Oedipus died in solitude, giving his blessings to Athens (Roche 151, 159) and not Thebes, and Jesus died publicly prior to God’s Kingdom being established in the way Jesus’ disciples presumed (Acts 1.7). The cure does not come because the prescription is not in the figure; rather, the healing comes through the death of literalizing the symbol and allowing the archetypal force to re-present itself time and again. Here is where the archetypal patricide takes place, both with Jesus and Oedipus: the son, still ever so innocently, kills the father as the father is no longer seen through the figure of the son. Who, however, is the murderer?
Each myth stops at this depth: the figure. As Hillman points out, the followers of Oedipus, depth-psychologists, have been Oedipal through and through since Sigmund Freud identified himself as Oedipus (130-136). Similarly, subsequent followers of Jesus claim that, “It is not I who live but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2.20). The two foundational myths of the West merge in this depth—here the canyons are joined: a collection of myth-followers who stop at the foot of the brook where only their reflection off the rippling waters of the brook is seen. The reflecting figure is believed to be the figure to be seen, and interpreters miss that this figure is being reflected through an effervescent movement of water: there is something to be experienced—much like the original audiences—through the embodying eikon. What most interpreters have found, though, is a reflection, and one made of vagueness—the quality of any symbol—because of the ripples.
The redeeming deaths of Oedipus and Jesus (see below) have functioned as patricidal deaths, for in the death of the son, who is redeemed through that death, the archetypal force is then killed. Depth-psychology’s murder of Apollonic thinking and Nietzsche’s proclamation of the death of (the Judeo-Christian) God are not mere statements: they are invitations to pick up where these corpses lay. The merging of the Oedipus and Jesus tales at the foot of a brook suggests a safe place, stopping where fluidity begins, gazing only at a reflected image instead of breaking that image with the insertion of ourselves within the stream, where you never step into the same water twice. Apollo nor YHWH are at fault here; the fault lies in idolatry, in literalizing the figurine presented with archetypal force to be the archetype itself.
Apollo and YHWH are the archetypal gods most often associated with literalism, rationalism, a my-way-or-the-highway mentality (example, Apollonic: Hillman, 119). Literalism cannot reign supreme if ambivalence, metaphor, and polysemy are allowed. When these two archetypes, though, are seen in relation to the containers in which they are signified by, the problem becomes more with the interpretation of the symbol than it does with the signifier. The patricide which is involved in these stories involves a literalizing of the son, of not seeing through the image of the son. The redemption of Jesus’ death is not false to life, as Hillman suggests in Re-Visioning Psychology (98-99), for it was through death that new life was acquired. That is, new life, a new mode of being came vis-à-vis his death. Oedipus, now aware of how he had carried out Apollo’s oracle, was willing to endure Apollo’s death wish and in doing so was able to bless Athens.
The symbol is most true when it is recognized as something not quite graspable. In each story, Oedipus and Jesus are adored by their followers for both embody archetypal forces that bring healing; however, the banal nature of these re-presenters could not be overlooked. Apollo and YHWH proved the humanity of their archetypal representations by causing all-too-human events to occur: Oedipus with his self-inflicted torture and Jesus with his Roman-inflicted torture. When the Chorus questioned the reasoning behind Oedipus’ self-blinding Oedipus replied, “Friends, it was Apollo, Spirit of Apollo: He made this fruit of evil fructify” (Roche, 75). In the Garden of Gethsemane, while pondering on events soon to come, Jesus prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not as I will but as You will” (Matt. 26.39)—it is well known what came from that prayer. It is in this suffering, this utter despair, where Oedipus and Jesus seem most human. As sons of god, Oedipus and Jesus were to be that: sons, metaphorical re-presentations of the archetypal force in a grief-stricken Athens and socially disruptive Judea. The problem of literalizing the re-presentation of an archetypal force is summed up, with tongue-in-cheek, by John Crossan: “…remember, if Jesus is at the right hand of God, then God is to the left of Jesus” (Stewart, 26). These men were images, eikons, for these settings, and considering the rife chaos, exploitation, and violent disruptions of today, they might be equally needed as they were for their original audiences.
Concluding, but Never Making a Final Conclusion
Depth-psychology has argued since its beginning that it is in the underworld, in dreams, in the psyche’s depths where we are to find the forces which guide, forewarn, condemn, uplift, and bring meaning to life. The Oedipus and Jesus tales are the two primary stories that form the Western psyche and, since the Western soul is dehydrated, these stories have received the blunt of criticisms for leaving their followers malnourished. As it has been argued here, the problem might lay more in the unwillingness to dive into the brook these myths bring one to rather than the myths themselves. The mythical patricide is committed not by Oedipus and Jesus, but by the interpreting followers of these myths who use the infant to destroy the father; followers see only the symbol instead of looking through the symbol and becoming a symbol themselves. The death of each figure is a journey in to the underworld; the blessings of Athens and the resurrection of Jesus are not a reemergence to the day world, they are not repatriating to a mode of literalism. Rather, these two figures invite their followers to die themselves, to delve into the underworld as a means of entering a new mode of existence: an existence where the archetypal force can crucify or humiliate you and through that bring healing to others.
The above interpretation is, of course, a mythical reading, which suggests that it re-mythologizes these myths. Then again, is this not what a myth must do? These stories invite us to journey to the depths of the West’s canyon, and the brook that runs through these stories can nourish the soul, if we choose to get our feet a little wet and muddy.
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