The Rise of Wisdom Moon. Krishna mishra
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Nescience and Intuition are pater- _______
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nal half-siblings, having been born to one or another of the two wives of Thought, and that the latter, in turn, was the unique son of the Supreme Lord’s marriage with Maya, the cosmic illusion underlying all creation. Intuition and Magnus Nescience, therefore, are now the chiefs of two rival, but consanguine, clans.
Lust also reveals to Passion a terrifying secret: he has heard a prophecy that a spell-wielding demoness, Scientia, will arise to put an end to both branches of the family at once. Her birth, like that of her brother Wisdom Moon, will follow from Intuition’s marriage to Lady Upanishad. As Lust loudly condemns those who would thus seek to destroy their own clan, a new commotion is heard. But this time it is Intuition reacting in his turn to Lust’s deprecations of him.
Intuition now discusses the family’s fate with his wife, Lady Intelligence, seeking to explain just how it is that the Supreme Lord—the highest principle that is the true and eternal Self, or Brahman—came to be entangled in the snares of Illusion, who has lulled the Lord into a profound, fitful sleep. When Intelligence inquires as to what might be done to rouse him so that he may be awakened once again, Intuition is embarrassed. Fearing his wife’s reaction, he hesitates to reveal that she will have to accept Upanishad as her co-wife. Intelligence, however, assures him that she is not one given to jealousy. As the first act concludes, they plot together to bring about Intuition’s union with Upanishad so that Wisdom Moon may be born.
The setting shifts to Varanasi, where the second act begins. The holy city, a place promising liberation on this ____
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earth, is now in the clutches of one of Magnus Nescience’s main henchmen, Hypocrite, who has adopted the guise of a pious brahmin. A boastful stranger arrives, seeking to find lodging in Hypocrite’s household, but the two merely annoy one another before realizing that they are in fact close relations; for the stranger is Egoismo, the “I-maker,” who is the source of our conviction that we are discrete selves, separate from both the true and absolute self, as well as from one another. Hypocrite is none other than his grandson, the child of Lady Craving and Lord Greed. Their entire branch of the family, it emerges, has been ordered to Varanasi by Magnus Nescience, who soon arrives on stage with much fanfare. It is not long before he is joined by Hedonist, the representative of worldliness and materialism, and here embodying the deepest folly into which philosophical thinking can fall.
Although Hedonist reports the victory of Nescience’s forces in the world at large, he has also learned of a possible source of danger to their faction: there is a powerful female adept, Hail Vishnu, now active, who poses a threat that can- not be ignored. Nescience orders her elimination, but then discovers that he faces an additional problem. A messenger from Orissa, where the great temple of Jagan·natha is in the hands of Nescience’s minions, brings the unwelcome news that the ladies Peace and Faith are serving as go-betweens to arrange Intuition’s marriage with Upanishad. Moreover, Lex, Dharma in Sanskrit, personifying the laws, duties and regulations of the world, was until recently allied with Lust, but now seems to have befriended Dispassion and is therefore changing camps. Nescience, furious at this defection, ________
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sends the order to Lust that Lex be brought under control. To ensure, too, that Peace, Faith and the other allies of Intuition are suitably neutralized, he sends for his leading partisans: Lord Anger and Sir Greed, Lady Craving and Mistress Harm. Despite their assurances, Nescience nonetheless remains concerned that Peace presents a graver risk than his followers can admit. As she is the daughter of Faith, and Faith, in turn, the constant companion of Upanishad, he must devise a means to drive these last two apart. Peace, on learning of her mother’s disappearance, will then be left off-guard and vulnerable. In the final scene of the act, he hatches his plan: the seductive and devious Miss Conception, the very incarnation of false ideas, is dispatched to work her wiles on hapless Faith.
As the third act unfolds, Peace is found weeping in distress at her mother’s absence. She goes so far as to contemplate suicide, and is dissuaded only by the entreaties of her friend Mercy, who urges her not to abandon the search for her mother, even if it takes her among heretics and outcastes. The pair sets out, meeting in turn a Jain ascetic, a Buddhist monk, and a Skullman, who follows the transgressive path of tantric Shaivism. All three are found to be accompanied by their respective versions of Faith, but Mercy and Peace discern that none is true Faith, Peace’s mother. They are not imbued with the principle of truth and purity (sattva), but are, rather, the daughters of the dark and dull element (tamas), or of energy and excitation (rajas). The Skullman, moreover, is an adept of the black arts and so sets about to deploy a potent spell called the “Great Terrorress” (Mahabhairavi) to capture true Faith, together with Lex.
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Love meets Faith in the fourth act, after the latter has managed to escape from the Terrorress’s clutches following the Skullman’s conjurations. It was, indeed, the yogini Hail Vishnu who succeeded in counteracting the spell, and she, too, has been busy organizing Intuition’s forces in the struggle against Magnus Nescience. Intuition, for his part, weakened by the run-up to war, has retreated to Radha—the hometown of Egoismo—in Bengal, where, practicing austerities, he prepares himself for union with Upanishad. He calls upon those among his forces who are most capable of defeating Nescience’s greatest warriors: Analyst is to vie with Lust, Patience with Anger, and Contentment with Greed. Each is called upon in turn to explain the means for victory at their disposal. The troops assembled, they set out for battle. Intuition mounts his chariot and flies off for an aerial view of the rout of Nescience’s armies in Varanasi. In the concluding portion of the act, he offers homage to Vishnu at the chief shrine in the holy city.
Although Intuition and his forces are now victorious, the war, like that of the “Maha·bharata,” has been waged among siblings. The joy of success, therefore, is dampened by grief at the fate of one’s closest relations, much as it is in the hero Arjuna’s laments in the first canto of the “Bhagavad·gita.” Faith articulates this in the first lines of act five, and hastens to meet Hail Vishnu, to whom she is to report the events of the battle. She finds the goddess in conversation with her daughter, Peace. Joining them, she describes what has taken place.
After the armies had gathered, Intuition dispatched Reason as his messenger to Nescience, with the ultimatum that ______
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the latter and his party must quit Varanasi or face death in battle. Taking up the challenge, Nescience sends the heresies into action as the first wave of his attack. The goddess Sarasvati appears at the head of Intuition’s army to rally his troops. She is soon joined by Lady Hermeneutics—the Mimansaka philosophy—together with the other schools and traditions that affirm the authority of the Veda. Though they have often been discordant in the past, they are now united by a common purpose. As Faith explains it, all those that are founded in the Vedic revelation partake of the same inner light.
In the heat of the ensuing combat, the materialist system soon perishes, quickly abandoned by both sides. The surviving heretics are driven to the frontiers. Lust, Anger and the remaining close allies of Nescience are slain in individual combat, while Nescience himself has fled and gone into hiding no-one-knows-where. Thought, the father of both Intuition and Nescience, learning of the demise of so many of his progeny, now grows despondent and contemplates suicide.