Mong Long Ago

In "The Sky People," Loklann sells Meycan captives to Mong slave traders whereas, in "Windmill,":

"'...Calforni threw out the Mong long ago...'" (p. 148)

- so a single sentence tells us that a lot of history has passed.

Assessing the competing pantheons, the mayor of Hope, the new settlement with the mysterious windmills, says that:

Oktai and his fellow gods are Asians so they should have left with the Mong;

Sanacruceans attend the church of Tanaroa and Lesu Haristi because the Maurai do;

the Meycans worship Esu Carito;

but he himself trusts in science and arms.

In Preston, near here, there is a dog leg street with a Hindu Temple at one end and a riverside pub at the other. For a while, a Pagan moot met in the pub so I like to imagine Indian gods at one end of the street and British gods, including the river god, at the other. The gods enrich our lives but we imagine them, not vice versa. If we lived nearer, I would visit that Temple now and again.

Post-Imperial Pax

Starfarers, 44.

"'Rats' nests of tribes, peoples, classes, religions, godknowswhats, scourings of wars, migrations, revolutions, conversions, history - much too much history, much too little of it ours.'" (p. 411)

Thus speaks an Imperial Governor ("Executive"). The natives are "rats' nests" and "scourings." He acknowledges his ignorance: "godknowswhats." It is a problem for him that their history differs from his. One of the cities that he governs is "'Aswarm with fanatics.'" (p. 412) I am confident both that there is a line to be drawn between fanatics and other anti-Governance campaigners and that the Executive and I would draw that line in a different place.

It does not have to be like that. Today our Muslim neighbors celebrate Eid. Brightly garbed visitors from other cities fill the street. Two families give us plates of curry, rice, cakes and bread that make our evening meal. 

In Preston ("Priest Town") twenty miles away:

the City logo is a Lamb with a Cross;

there are many Catholic religious houses;

Preston City Church has become Preston City Mosque;

but the church congregation has moved to new premises;

one street had a church, mosque and Gurdwara next door to each other;

but the Gurdwara (Sikh Temple) was due to move to larger premises;

another street has an ornate Hindu Temple at one end and had a Pagan Moot meeting in a pub at the other end;

there is a nearby Buddhist Center;

an Anglican Bishop was a guest at an Eid celebration.

 

We celebrate diversity.

Before The Eddas And The Vedas

To Turn The Tide, CHAPTER ELEVEN.

An apprehended but suiciding assassin invokes a name which Saruke and we recognize:

"'Wodinaz...God of fighters. God of good warrior death, leads warrior dead to halls of Gods.'" (p. 165)

When Denesh leaves the Bakhri, King Thuliash asks:

"'...Indra the Thunderer that he bid his warrior Maruts watch over you for as far as their range may reach...'"

-Poul Anderson, The Shield Of Time (New York, July 1991), PART SIX, p. 278.

These gods were around a long time ago, still multiple and of limited range, of course, back then.

In Preston ("Priest Town," a hot-bed of Catholicism), near here, by the river, there is a dog leg street with a Hindu Temple at one end and a pub that used to host a Pagan Moot at the other. I contemplate Vedic gods, British gods and the river god... As a matter of fact, the Temple is closed to the public in the afternoon so, on visits to Preston, I used to meditate in a more convenient Jesuit Church in the City Centre. Why am I posting about this now? I am inspired by references to Woden and Indra in different timelines.

Interstellar Spaceships And Idols

Slower-than-light interstellar travel is not an easy matter.

In Poul Anderson's Tales Of The Flying Mountains, the spaceship Astra has only just set out towards Alpha Centauri.

In Anderson's Orbit Unlimited, there are four parts:

at the end of part one, it has been decided that a dissident group will be exiled to an extra-solar planet, Rustum;

in part two, the group is in interstellar space and must decide whether to turn back;

in part three, they are in orbit around Rustum;

in part four, they are finally settling the surface of Rustum.

In later volumes, there are four more stories set on Rustum and a ninth set on a second extra-solar planet, Roland, in the same timeline.

A spaceman returns to Earth to find an idol where a church had been. To him, the idol is an abomination. To some of us, the church and the idol are alternative approaches to the eternal.

I read about a Hindu religious leader, name forgotten, who, as a child, was taken to a Shiva temple where he saw a mouse eating food offered to the deity. He thought, "This god cannot even protect his offering from a mouse," and became an iconoclast, like the Hebrew prophets, whereas the normative Hindu vision is of God in the idol, the food, the mouse and the congregation.

See:

"The Divine Is With Us"