I

The Epics

Thousands of years and thousands of miles separate the composition of the Indian epics and the writing of the manuscripts containing the Irish Táin Bo Cuailnge.  India and Ireland stand at the corners of the Indo-European language area – the expanse over which the ancient language group spread and developed.  It has been noted such geographical extremities tend to retain cultural elements better than tumultuous areas in the center.  Even a cursory examination of the epics, focusing on the basic plots, will be able to show the continuities and sharing of culture across an incredible stretch of time and space.  This example will hopefully give insight into the cultural interaction that is today associated with globalization, which is neither new, nor has increased in extent or depth.  It is simply occurring faster, with changes evident within a lifetime.

Not being a student of comparative literature, nor experienced in picking stories apart, I can only point to the most obvious similarities between the epics.  Thankfully, these clear examples are numerous enough to be convincing.  First, in both epics an exile prefaces a major war that throws the land in upheaval.  The Pandavas, the heroic sons of Pandu whose true fathers are actually gods, and around whom the Mahabharata revolves, are exiled for twelve years, followed by a thirteenth year of hiding.  Their enemies, the sons of Dhritarashtra, hope this exile will remove them as a threat, but in actuality they only become stronger, learning new fighting techniques and expanding their philosophical knowledge.  In the Táin, Fergus was peaceably removed as king of Ulster, but the death of his son caused him to threaten the new king, who forces Fergus into exile.  Fergus finds himself allies in King Ailill and Queen Medb of Connacht.

In the thirteenth year, the year the Pandavas had to spend disguised, the Pandavas entered the service of the king of the Matsyas, Virata, who is analogous to the King and Queen of Connacht.  In both epics, the exiles come to the aid of their new allies because of a cattle raid.  Arjuna of the Pandavas rises up to defend Virata’s land from a raid, while Fergus aids Medb in her cattle raid of Ulster.  It is interesting that Fergus ends up on the wrong side, while the Pandavas ally themselves with the right one.  The hero of the Táin is actually Cu Chulainn, who is the equivalent of Arjuna while Fergus finds himself in the same place as Drona, Arjuna’s teacher.  Cu Chulainn defends Ulster, most of the time single-handedly, against the raid of Connacht.

The interaction between Cu Chulainn and Fergus is in most ways the same as that between Arjuna and Drona.  Fergus is Cu Chulainn’s foster-father and mentor, and though they find themselves on opposite sides in the war, they have the utmost respect for each other and refuse to do battle.  Drona and Arjuna fight, but contrary to expectations the fight is not described in detail and both are reluctant.  Neither is victorious, and both still have full respect for the other.  A ruse concerning the death of Drona’s son Aswatthama is required to finally convince Drona to quit fighting and die.  Fergus survives the war in the Táin, but I cannot help but feel that the supposed death of Drona’s son is somehow mirrored in the way the death of Fergus’ son leads him into the conflict.

Single combat fills the description of war in both epics, as heroes face off to display their skills.  An interesting similarity is that these skills have names in both epics.  Cu Chulainn completes many feats against his most significant foe, Ferdia, each with its own interesting, yet unexplained, name.  Ferdia is finally defeated with the gae bolga, which is not described in any way except that it is used in conjunction with a short javelin, or perhaps is a special javelin.  Throughout his combats, Arjuna uses astras – spears endowed with divine powers.  Each astra has a name based on the god invoked.  It seems likely that Cu Chulainn’s gae bolga is similar in nature, especially since his training in it and other feats mirrors the training Arjuna receives.

Both heroes, like all heroes in the Indo-European tradition – Achilles and Hercules among them – are demi-gods.  That is, one of their parents is human while the other is a god.  Arjuna is the son of Indra and Cu Chulainn is, somewhat indirectly, the son of the god Lug.  This unified view of what it takes to be a hero speaks volumes to the spread of fundamental cultural sensibilities.

Arjuna and Cu Chulainn also both fought in chariots guided by noteworthy charioteers.  The god Krishna is Arjuna’s charioteer, and the Bhagavad Gita is formed by the famous discourse between the two.  Cu Chulainn’s charioteer, Laeg, does not have nearly the status of Krishna, but nevertheless advises the hero constantly and remains his constant companion.  The real significance of chariot warfare strikes home when one realizes that such combat had never been used in Ireland.  There were no chariots in Ireland.  Yet the descriptions of chariot battle are too ingrained in the story to have been an afterthought.  So, in the least, those sections must have been adapted from tales of continental Europe where chariot warfare was common, if not further.

In fact, the Táin, the Mahabharata, and perhaps the Iliad as well, are all retellings of a much older tale reinvented to fit new contexts.  In contrast to the traditional transmission of spiritual texts like the Vedas, it would be considered completely legitimate in all three cultures for an epic to be changed to fit context to keep the story fresh and interesting, so long as essential kernels remained untouched.  The quirks of oral versus written tradition will be discussed in a later chapter, but in no case are those quirks more important than in the preservation of epics.  Writing makes the epic concrete in a way it was never meant to be.  That does not mean that a storyteller can do anything at all to the story – his audience would throw him out if he took too many liberties – but he has the leeway to keep it interesting and entertaining.  That alone would be enough to explain the differences between the Mahabharata and the Táin.

A more careful analysis of the epics would likely reveal more similarities, but for the purpose of illustrating a few points about cultural development, these quick examples are adequate.  The central point is simple: cultures change.  This is sometimes forgotten in the course of individual lifetimes, and people today have expressed increasing desire to preserve their cultures, which seem to be under siege.  But it is in the nature of cultures to share ideas, as the epics show.  One reason why people have defensive attitudes toward their culture is the struggle between the old and the new, described in a later chapter.  Another is because, ironically, the new consumer culture that many older cultures are struggling against actually encourages this desire to draw lines, because differences can produce profits.  If you can convince a person that he or she needs a particular object, or dress a certain way, to be considered part of a culture, then you can sell the product.  And if people are more defensive about their culture, they will take every chance to display their pride in it.  This irony and other interesting facets of consumer culture will be discussed in relationship to the history of spirituality in the twentieth century.

The purity of culture has never existed in fact.  If this is becoming more evident, it is only because communication of ideas has increased in speed, going from the pace of a horse or ship only a hundred and fifty years ago to almost light speed today, making changes obvious within short timeframes.  Certainly, if thousands of years ago the basic elements of an epic could be shared by both India and Ireland, when neither culture knew clearly of the other’s existence, there should be no illusion of timeless traditions unchanging over the ages.  There is a natural impulse to set the origins of one’s own culture as far back as possible because of the sense that the ancient is more respectable, or even closer to the sacred.  And while this impulse might be stifled in the era of progress, in which the newer is better, it still forms a part of our understanding.

To a great extent, the struggle between the temporal and the eternal, or perhaps the struggle of the temporal to become eternal, is at the heart of spirituality and its interaction with culture.  The epics are central to both spirituality and culture, but while a respectable storyteller can change the cultural references to suit his context, there is the understanding that the spiritual side should not be touched.  Consider the fact that the Táin was written down in manuscripts by Christians in monasteries, and while they changed a few details to suit their sensibilities and tried to change some especially pagan points, many distinctly non-Christian aspects to the tale remain.  Nevertheless, the pre-Christian tale was considered important enough to be preserved because it still fits the culture.  Also, the Vedas, were passed down by oral tradition in India just as the Mahabharata originally was, but they had to be recited exactly as they were composed, with no variation whatsoever allowed.  Spirituality transcends culture in that it reaches for the eternal while culture must remain tied to context.  If the basis of a spiritual system is changed, its value is considered lost, while aspects of culture and traditions do not have that problem.  Culture’s main function is to determine how human beings interact with each other and identify themselves, and so can only serve its function if it remains meaningful.

This, of course, means that spirituality and culture occasionally work together, but often come into conflict.  With the faster rate of cultural change in the modern era – first creating a generation gap, and now forming a new divide every decade – old methods of reconciling such conflicts, such as the composition of a brilliant story, are no longer adequate.  So, the rest of this book will pick apart the dizzying rate of change and try to make sense of what is happening by using trends that have persisted throughout history.  This method is only reasonable if it is first understood that the modern phenomenon is not fundamentally different from what has occurred since ancient times, only much faster.