Krishna

"King sent a brief prayer of thankfulness to Krishna - it seemed appropriate, since the merciful God had appeared to Arjuna and counseled him on a warrior's duty. Of course, he'd also told the noble bowman that he must fight and kill only from duty, without personal attachment."
-SM Stirling, The Peshawar Lancers (New York, 2003).

Krishna taught Arjuna karma yoga, non-attached action in the secular world, as against ascetic withdrawal from action. To engage even in military conflict may be the lesser evil but a karma yogi performs any necessary task mindfully, thus more efficiently, free from, undistracted by, mental attachments like desire for success or fear of failure. In the battle, he is untouched by it.

The Bhagavad Gita presents bhakti (devotional) yoga, mantra yoga, a cosmic vision and Krishna as a personal deity but I think that karma yoga is its most important and distinctive message. A former Krishna devotee told me that he visited the battlefield of Kurukshetra where there is a life size sculpture of Krishna and Arjuna on their chariot which is inscribed with shlokas (Gita verses) and a temple has been built at the site of the death of each of the epic heroes.

My religious philosophy is built on meditation (the Buddha) and karma yoga (Krishna).

Addendum: Theistic karma yogis offer their actions to God. Laborare est orare. For Buddhists, non-attached action is working meditation.

Addendum (ii): I have missed the page number off the above quotation.

Krasna

"A Message in Secret."

The name of the planet Altai means "Golden." The name of its sun, Krasna, means "Red."

Krasna is a Slavic word meaning "red" or "beautiful". (Comparable to Sanskrit Kṛṣṇa or Karṣṇa which means "black", "dark" or "handsome").

-copied from here.

 

As I thought, "Krasna" is related to "Krishna." (For Krishna on this blog, see here.) Despite his name, Krishna is represented as blue. His name is not linguistically related to the royal/religious title, "Christ," meaning "Anointed." There is a fictional planet called "Krishna" but it is in a series by L. Sprague de Camp which I have not read.

 

I think that that exhausts the topic of these planetary names.

Brahma

The Day Of Their Return, 13.

 Chunderban Desai who swore by God, Krishna and Shiva (see here), now gives us:

"'Brahma's mercy, yes!'" (p. 177)

Desai has almost completed Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity:

Brahma, creator;

Vishnu, preserver;

Shiva, destroyer.

Krishna is an avatar of Vishnu.

Hindu mythology is rich and can be appreciated as mythology also expressing philosophy. The Buddha can be included as an avatar. I value Buddhist meditation and Krishna's teaching of karma yoga but there is something there for everyone.

Kossara's Prayer II

My daughter, Aileen, attended some Indian dance lessons. The instructor said, "This next dance is particularly associated with Krishna but, if you prefer, you can think of Christ." Aileen and others replied, "Krishna is fine!" Hindu inclusiveness meets post-Christian inclusiveness.

Three figures that come together in my head are:

Krishna, teaching karma yoga;

the Buddha, teaching meditation;

Jesus, preaching the kingdom (a new consciousness and a new society).

This has brought us a long way from Kossara Vymezal addressing Father, Jesus, Mary and Holy Spirit but we are all human beings trying to make sense of life. 

Divine Masks

In the original version of Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword, Loki was an earlier incarnation of Satan (this is the first time that I have come across this idea) whereas, in the revised version, Odin at one point impersonates Satan! As often happens, a few lines by Anderson open a gateway onto other mythology and literature.

Since we project all the gods and other imaginary beings, we can rearrange them for different narrative purposes. In a film of the Mahabharata, the actor playing Krishna holds an elephant mask in front of his face and says, "Sri Ganesha at your service!" In the Gita, Krishna says that the gods are His million faces whereas an Indian Jesuit suggested that the Hindu gods were the man on the road to Emmaus. Whose face is behind all the masks? Maybe we need a mirror?

Hinduism incorporates the Buddha as an incarnation of Vishnu alongside Rama and Krishna and could incorporate Christ in the same way. A master in a Zen story said that whoever preached the Sermon on the Mount was "not far from Buddhahood." Jesus is a Prophet of Islam.

However, examples need not be multiplied.

Into Battle

How do men and indeed beings prepare to go to war? In The People Of The Wind, Chapter VII, Poul Anderson presents a Terran Admiral and the two Marchwardens of the Lauran System.

Admiral Cajal

The Admiral thinks:

"Man's duty in this life...is to choose the lesser evil." (Rise Of The Terran Empire, p. 514)

That is Krishna's teaching to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita. To summarize my understanding of Krishna's teaching:

Arjuna must carry out his duty as a kshatriya, a member of the warrior/ruler caste;
inaction is impossible;
there is inaction in action and action in inaction;
I (Krishna speaking as the supreme deity) act and My action sustains the universe;
at the Battle of Kurukshetra, the destruction of the enemy is a lesser evil than their continued existence;
act without attachment.

While I accept the teaching of nonattached action, I think that there are times when we can go beyond "the lesser evil." Sometimes canvassers solicit my vote with the argument that their political party is a lesser evil than its main opponent! I say offer me a higher good - or let's campaign for one.

Cajal, safe at the center of a superdreadnaught behind his fleet but all too conscious of sending others to their deaths, glances at a picture of his dead wife, listens to Bach's Passacaglia, which they had both liked, takes off his bonnet, kneels, signs himself and prays before a crucifix.

Second Marchwarden Holm

Daniel Holm, coordinating Avalonian defense, embraces his wife.

First Marchwarden Ferune

Although Ferune, in his superdreadnaught Hell Rock, is Ythrian, he remembers:

"The fear of a king is as the roaring of a lion..." (Proverbs 20:2)

Some human beings would empathize with Ferune more than with Cajal!

Metaphorical Gods

Harvest Of Stars, 29.

Gods and other beings continue to be referenced metaphorically. Kyra reflects that Rinndalir is:

"...more Faust than Mephistopheles..." (p. 282)

He says:

"'I do not think that once this is over we can return to our familiar universe. Siva is the Destroyer. But he is, as well, the Creator Anew." (p. 283)

She wonders:

"...if he truly was Faust. If not, what? A trickster god, Raven, Coyote? Or Loki?" (ibid.)

Finally, when he has told her that she is remarkable and has suggested that they be simply themselves:

"If you wanted a mythic likening, how about Krishna?" (p. 284)

Knowing Krishna's reputation, we know what this means. 

Gods Who Walk On Earth

In Wagner's Ring cycle, Wotan is called the Wanderer when he walks among men. In Poul Anderson's War Of The Gods, Gangleri (Wanderer) introduces Hadding Gramsson to the wadmal-wearing Lysir Eyvinsson who has assembled a fleet. Readers, although not the characters, recognize Gangleri as Odin.

Imagine if the chief god were anthropomorphic/humanoid and could simply descend to Earth and walk around like anyone else without having to change form or to be incarnated! It took me a while to realize this but that is exactly what Krishna Consciousness devotees believe about Krishna. He is not an incarnation or avatar, as in mainstream Hinduism, but is literally the most fundamental form of God. The ultimate reality that creates and sustains everything else is and always has been humanoid, male and blue.

We accept such an idea in the Eddas, Wagner and Anderson but must surely question it if it is presented to us as serious theology.

Richard III And Hindu Gods

(Leicester Cathedral.)

Having visited Shakespeare's birth and burial places in Stratford, we are now in Leicester where the Shakespearean villain, Richard III, has been solemnly reburied. See Living History and Guests In The Old Phoenix II. We expect to visit Richard's tomb tomorrow. Today, we walked along the Golden Mile of Asian shops and cafes, where a banner proclaiming "Happy Diwali" spanned the road, bought Indian takeaway food and admired images of Hindu gods.

We - or at least I - remember "Hinduraj" in Poul Anderson's Carthaginian timeline and in SM Stirling's Emberverse. We also remember Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers, with its sympathetic treatment of Krishna, and hope that there will be a sequel.

Hare Krishna!

About Odin

Neil Gaiman tells us many things about Odin, including that:

"He travels from place to place in disguise, to see the world as people see it. When he walks among us, he does so as a tall man, wearing a cloak and hat."
-Neil Gaiman, Norse Mythology (London, 2018), p.2.

We know this from reading Poul Anderson.

Also:

"He has different names in every country (for he is worshipped in different forms and in many tongues, but it is always Odin they worship.)"
-ibid.

This expresses something. Converts to Krishna Consciousness believe that it was always Krishna that they wanted to meet. Now that I practice zazen, I feel that I was always moving towards the Buddha Dharma.

Gaiman also tells us that he does not know whether Ragnarok has happened yet and that this makes the Norse myths linger, remaining "...strangely present and current...," (p. xii) whereas other better-documented belief systems seem old and past. (I saw a juvenile retelling that began by placing Ragnarok not in the future but in our far past so that we are living in the new world.) Poul Anderson's Tau Zero was a modern scientific cosmological cyclical myth.

The War

Should we write "the war" or "the War"? We usually know which war we mean. Very often, "the war/War" means the Second World War unless stated otherwise. To take an example from a book that I am currently reading:

"In the autumn of 1947 Krishna, fully recovered, left Ojai on his first trip abroad since before the war."

-Radha Rajagopal Sloss, Life In The Shadow With J. Krishnamurti (London, 1991), PART THREE, 20, p. 215.

("Krishna" is not the Hindu god but someone named after him.) Obviously, in 1947, "the war" can only mean World War II but it continued to mean that for decades afterwards.

Flora, the immortal escaped slave says:

"'Po' young Marse Brett, he done get killed in de waw.'"

-The Boat Of A Million Years, XIII, p. 272.

We accept this reference to "de waw." Then we reflect that Flora must be speaking before the American Civil War. Edmonds wonders and asks:

"'What war?'

"'De Rebolution, it was. Yay, eben us slaves heard 'bout dat.'" (p. 273)

That makes her about a hundred - which the Edmonds do not believe. A more plausible explanation is that:

"'She's overwrought.'" (ibid.)

 - and:

"'...kind of crazy.'" (ibid.)

Well, it is obvious that "de waw" has different meanings in different contexts. I remember a good-humoured exchange between some students and a barman:

First student: "Ah, but I was referring to the Second World War, Jim!"

Barman: "So was I, you cheeky devil!"

Second student: "I assumed you meant American Civil!"

If only we lived that long.

Shipwrecked

In Poul Anderson's "The Three-Cornered Wheel," four Earthmen are shipwrecked on Ivanhoe:

Captain Krishna Mukerji;
Master Polesotechnician Martin Schuster;
Engineer Romulo Pasqual;
apprentice David Falkayn.

I think that it is worth recording each one because they all add to the richness of Anderson's Technic History. We know Falkayn - or will come to know him as we read the History. We learn that Schuster is Jewish and that his introduction of the Kabbalah will subvert the Ivanhoan theocracy. I am guessing that the other two are Hindu and Catholic respectively, at least by upbringing.

I thought that there must have been a fifth man because Pasqual refers to "Kirsh..." (The Van Rijn Method, p. 213) but there is no one else. "Kirsh" must be an abbreviation for "Krishna" and maybe should have read "Krish"? I will continue to mine this story for interesting details about the Technic History universe.

"All the traffic will bear."

Escape And Education

Fiction writers can not only entertain by offering an escape from reality but also educate by reflecting reality and can even do both simultaneously. Ingenious. We can do some of this for ourselves with help from imaginative authors. My own immediate environment is exotic enough:

in London, a devotee of Krishna offers me free vegetarian food;

in Birmingham, a Muslim propagandist hands me a free Koran while a passerby tells me that I should read the Bible;

in Liverpool, I passed a parish church, a mosque, a Krishna Temple and a Latin Rite Catholic Church before returning to my apartment to meditate -

- and all of this reminds me of Poul Anderson's Technic civilization where:

on Avalon, Tabitha Falkayn says that we are mostly of the Old Faith in Highsky Choth;

on diverse planets, the natives are converted to Terrestrial religions;

in the Patrician system, a revolutionary proclamation claims that the Divine in whatever form It manifests Itself to you is with us! (See here.)

Three powerful statements, from an epic, a play and a traditional story respectively, have gained a universal significance:

"Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes" (I fear Greeks bringing gifts);
"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark";
"...appointment in Samara."

Here we discussed the politics of Mongo, Barsoom, Technic civilization, the Emberverse and that other strange mental construct, contemporary Britain. Imagine one Zodangan trying to assassinate the Jeddak of Helium or to sabotage a Heliumite airship while another leads a peaceful protest against Heliumite occupation or imagine similar political differences between Anderson's Braeans. Such is fictional life.

Revelations Of Universality

The Game Of Empire, CHAPTER NINETEEN.

Axor wonders whether his decipherment of Ancient inscriptions might lead:

"'To the very revelation of Christ's universality, that will in time bring all sentient beings into his church?'" (p. 403)

This seems remarkably naive. Christianity has been one of many beliefs since its inception and would be one of many more on the galactic scale of the Technic History. There will be some similarities and Axor might find a pattern of several beliefs in an Incarnation but that is as far as it goes. Proof, if that were claimed, would make Axor's kind of religion no longer a matter of faith. Revelation is a matter of interpretation and overlaps, as I have realized from reading Ninian Smart's World Religions: A Dialogue, with religious experience. Anyone who has had a visionary or numinous experience can claim at least a private revelation. Each of us can only go with our own practice and experience. One devotee will see Christ in Krishna or Krishna in Christ and others will not but there is no universally agreed way to assess experience, nor need there be.

Religious Instruction

Poul Anderson has several Catholic characters (van Rijn, Axor and others) but does not address the issue of child-rearing - I don't think? - whereas SM Stirling tackles it head on:

"'I wouldn't go attend the funeral mass.' she blurted. 'I mean, I wouldn't take Communion at it. I won't, anymore, I should never have been confirmed. I've decided I'm of the Old Religion.'"
-SM Stirling, The Given Sacrifice (New York, 2014), Chapter Nineteen, p. 411.

I think that "decided" is the wrong word. We find that we believe as we do. Some parents tell their children what they, the children, believe, then get upset when the children say that they do not believe it. I think that this is entirely the wrong approach. Can a religion not survive by adult conversions? A Jesuit is said to have boasted that, given the child from the age of seven, he would answer for the beliefs of the man. No, sir! Or rather: No, Father!

I think that all children should receive a common education, adapted to the needs of individuals, and that any who want religious instruction should receive it in Sunday School or equivalent at the weekend. However, if religious groups continue to insist on running their own schools, then it would be both wrong and counterproductive to try to prevent them:

near us, in Lancaster, there is a Muslim girls' boarding school;
near my sister-in-law in Northern Ireland, there is a Free Presbyterian (Paisleyite) school;
near my sisters in Leicester, there is a Krishna Consciousness school.

I welcome diversity - and I prefer Krishna teaching karma yoga on the battlefield of Kurukshetra (see image) to the Evengelical Christ damning unbelievers. (By Vishnu, we are back to battlefields again!)

Blog Maintenance II

I cannot reread the blog without finding corrections to be made. For example, when quoting SM Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers (New York, 2003) about Krishna, I neglected to record the page number. Always willing to make a virtue of a necessity, I am now rereading the passages narrated from Athelstane King's point of view in search of these reflections on Krishna.

I agree with Harry Turtledove:

"Lush backgrounds, tight research, lively characters, thoroughly nasty villains, a fascinating and plausible society - what more can anyone possibly want?"
-quoted on what has to be p. i, immediately after the front cover.

What indeed? Lancers is the best of Stirling's novels that I have read so far - although I have not read many as yet. Stirling's novels are discussed here because they are seen as worthy successors of Poul Anderson's alternative history fictions.

As Athelstane King enters the restaurant of the Peshawar Club, his stomach reminds him that, after fighting for civilization, he deserves some of its fruits. Those fruits go beyond good food to courtesy and diplomacy. The Political agent says:

"'Captain King, I presume, of Rexin in Kashmir and the Peshawar Lancers? Good of you to sacrifice time on leave.'" (p. 42)

King thinks but, of course, does not say:

"And courteous of you to pretend I had a choice..." (ibid.)

The facility to engage in such civilized discourse is indeed worth defending against some of those villains that Turtledove mentions.

Kossara's Prayer

A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows, XVI.

Through Poul Anderson's empathetic writing, we imaginatively enter into Kossara Vymezal's prayer. She remembers her dead: her family, her fiance, her zmay servant, every soul and every living being that was killed when her home was nuked:

"Father of Creation, receive them. Jesus, absolve them. Mary, comfort them. Light of the Holy Spirit, shine upon them forever.

"I dare not ask for more. Amen." (p. 542)

Some Christians would confidently ask for everything and would not address Mary. Either way, this theology is perhaps the most complicated there is. Kossara, who herself will soon be a saint and prayed to, addresses four persons. I have to write "persons" rather than "beings" or "deities" because:

the three divine persons are one being;

Mary is a human being;

Jesus is both a divine and a human being.

That reads like a Hegelian triad of thesis, antithesis and synthesis.

Is it customary to address Mary between members of the Trinity?

Kossara believes that these four persons literally exist. They are not myths or personifications. She also believes that all the departed souls are immortal and will (hopefully) be received by the Father. Secularists simply dismiss all such beliefs. Maybe some of us can appreciate religions as what Alan Moore called "higher fictions." In The King Of Ys by Poul and Karen Anderson, Ysans, unlike Christians, do not understand their myths literally.

In SM Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers, the British Empire, Angrezi Raj, relocates to India where Anglican and Hindu concepts merge. Our hero appropriately reflects on Krishna. As a myth, I appreciate Vishnu:

the middle member of the Trimurti (Triple Form) - Brahma/Creator, Vishnu/Preserver, Shiva/Destroyer;

incarnated in an evolutionary sequence of animals and human beings, the latter including Krishna, the Buddha and (I don't see why not) Christ.

Side Chapels And Poul Anderson

I mentioned here and here that, when I meditate in a side chapel (in fact the Parr Chapel) of Kendal Parish Church, I sit beside the tomb (see image) of the grandfather of the sixth wife of Henry VIII. She was Catherine Parr. In Poul Anderson's The Corridors Of Time, time travelers fly above England during the Queenship of Henry's second wife, Anne Boleyn.

When I meditate in a side chapel of the Jesuit Catholic Church of St Wilfrid in Preston, I sit before a statue of St Francis Xavier, "the Apostle to the East," who converted many Indians and Japanese and died before he would have entered China. Poul Anderson's extra-terrestrial character Axor has converted to Jerusalem Catholicism, has been ordained in the (fictional and ironic) Galilean Order, has taken the name "Francis Xavier" and travels through the known galaxy not in order to convert other aliens directly but in order to find evidence for a non-human Incarnation in the belief that this would vindicate Christianity. Historical Jesuits and fictional Galileans include scientists. (There is a Jesuit biologist in James Blish's A Case Of Conscience.)

In the Hindu Temple in Preston, I sit beneath images of gods including Krishna who is revered by Athelstane King in SM Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers. I also respect the Krishna of the Bhagavad Gita as the teacher of karma yoga, the way of non-attached action. Thus, even day trips to Kendal or Preston generate subject matter for blogging.

Roma Mater I

OK. I am starting to reread The King Of Ys by Poul and Karen Anderson. This will take a long time. Volume I, Roma Mater (London, 1989) - "Mother Rome" - begins:

"At noon upon that Birthday of Mithras..." (p. 13)

The Andersons' Note explains that Mithras' Birthday, 25 December, had been the winter solstice but the latter had moved. (p. 443) Although our family recognizes 25 December with a Christmas Tree, we are also invited to a Pagan friend's house for Yule on the current solstice, 21 December.

I understand that Mithraism emerged from Persian Zoroastrianism in the same sort of way that Christianity emerged from the Abrahamic tradition. However, another Andersonian Note adds, and other sources confirm, that Mithras reached Rome via Persia from the Aryans. That makes his origin considerably older.

I prepare for meditation by invoking a named deity. I do not believe that such beings exist but see no harm in continuing the tradition of our ancestors, as in the Hippocratic Oath. Asking to be led from darkness to light focuses attention on "light." I think that "Indra" is an appropriate name. As the chief Vedic god, he would have been known to Gautama and is mentioned in Buddhist scriptures. However, Mithras, with slight variations of spelling, is comparably ancient and the Andersons adapted a Latin prayer from Kipling's "A Song to Mithras":

" 'Tene Mithra, etiam miles, fidos nostris votis nos!' " (p. 347)

"Mithras, also a soldier, keep us true to our vows!" (p. 481)

Not bad. Although not literally soldiers, we sometimes engage in conflicts and need to practice the karma yoga, nonattached action, taught by Krishna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra. I would occasionally visit the Hindu Temple in Preston, which has images of Krishna and other deities on its ceiling, if I lived nearer to it.

Can Anyone Help With This?

See Krishna.

On this blog, we quite often link to earlier posts on the same blog. When we do, we frequently find minor errors requiring correction, e.g., a name misspelt etc. In the post linked above, we have quoted from SM Stirling's The Peshawar Lancers but have omitted the page reference. My copy of this novel encompasses 458 pages of text. I might reread them all anyway - not a bad idea - but, meanwhile, does any other reader out there know the page reference for Athelstane King's reflection on the god Krishna?

The Peshawar Lancers and Conquistador are my two favourite SM Stirling novels, each conveying a sense of adventure on a new (to us) parallel Earth. These works are culminating peaks of an alternative history tradition that also includes both HG Wells and Poul Anderson. What's not to like?

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"Thy Merchants chase the morning down the sea