OUTREACH

Tribal cosmogony refers to a fivefold order that sets forth the timeless sequence of creation, preservation and dissolution of the world of matter. First Order is set in ‘nothingness’. In the beginning there was nothing, nothing at all but water or clouds and mist, or two eggs soft and shone like gold. Second Order causes primary creation of elements from the element of the first order. The first creation was asexual. The golden eggs collided and both broke open. From the one came the earth, from the other the sky. When the sky made love to the earth every kind of tree, grass and all living creatures came into being. In another story the earth, the cosmic Mother, died of her own accord and every part of her body became the part of the world. Third Order causes natural identity and differentiation in terms of colour, direction and form. Smell is another element of the Third Order; it makes communication between the form and the formless possible. Fourth Order causes the return to primordial state. Water is the self-existing element from which all other elements originate and to which they all return. Fifth Order is the Order of all orders. It creates the scenario of the world in which everything has its proper place, and everything grows and allows others to grow. It is inviolable.

Tribal myths can be parallel in the Vedic textual description of origins. According to the hymn of origins, first there was nothing Rigvedic—neither being nor nonbeing, no air nor yet sky beyond. Darkness was there, all wrapped around by darkness. The origin of reality is described by the symbol of the golden egg which becomes the God of Gods, Father of earth, of the heavens, of the waters and of all beings. Another most important hymn reveals the creation and all-embracing function in which the entire universe is involved. Purusa, the cosmic Man, the personal aspect of the whole of reality, performs an act of self-immolation so that the universe may come into being. From the limbs of the cosmic Man came all things both animate and inanimate: animals of every type, liturgical formulas, the four castes of men, the cosmic powers. From his spirit comes the moon, from the eyes the sun, from his mouth Indra and Agni (fire), from his breath the wind, from his navel the air, from his head the sky, from his feet the earth, from the ears the points of the compass — nothing, nobody is omitted.

Traditions differ in respect of both identification and enumeration of elements, but all of which seem to agree that elements of nature are subject to a fivefold order. Origination: From nothingness, everything originated. A break in the radical solidarity gave origins to male-female principle. Heterogeneity is a fundamental aspect in the origin and development of species. The built-in-order of cosmic unity is `One-and-many’. Binding: Elements of nature have a binding ability. Each element has a form, a location and a dependent relation with another element. Interlocking: form and life are cross-linked. Interlocking of elements is descried metaphorically. Earth and sky are universal parents. Fire and wind are brothers as water and mist are brothers. Earth and wind, water and fire are negatively linked; they have always been enemies. Wind is the friend of fire against water and he fights the rain in order to drive it before him. The more complex interlocking is perceived in the textual tradition. The five primay elements (earth, water, fire, air and sky) are linked with other elements or aspects of nature such as colour, form, sense-organs, physical character, property, functions, etc. They are also linked with psychological attributes called gunas. Each element is tied with a divinity and its related aspects such as mantras, etc. Overlapping: Elements have both personal (material) and universal (spiritual) attributes. Water and egg which appeared in the beginning have a funamental feature of sacredness. In tribal perception, the world is divided into two halves – the sky and the earth. There is a world beyond the sky and another below the earth. The five elements overlap in their formation and so does the world of matter and the other worlds. Transcending: Cosmogonic myths describe how the limits of the natural state are transcended. The state of the primordial solidarity was transcended as the egg broke open and the universe revealed itself. The natural order of self-origination was transcended by the origin of the male-female principle. The order of self-organization was transcended by the interlocking of various elements. The spatial order of the pluriverse was transcended by the overlapping of spheres in dreaming and trance. Life transends the limits of the form. Death transcends all attributes of the elements, including the limits of the temporal time. There is no intrinsic disorder in nature; dissolution in an integral aspect of the transcendent order of nature. Transcendence is the Order of all orders. It is inviolable.

The concept of sunya Brahman as a coherent reality provides us with a framework of thought behind the cosmogonic myths of origin (from nothingness) which appear utterly mystified. The ancient sage Yajnavalkya had defined Brahman as

That from which beings are born,

that by which, once born they live,

that into which, once dead, they enter.

Amazingly, and not so amazingly, the modern science has said so precisely in the same language. In quantum physics something can come out of nothing for a while, but eventually the debt has to be paid. The manner of the demise of the universe as a whole is determined by the nature of its birth. Cosmologists are of the opinion that about hundred billion stars, including the sun, make up the Milky Way Galaxy, a wheel-shaped structure. The galaxy is itself a part of a group of galaxies that form a cluster, while the cluster in turn form the supercluster of many thousands of galaxies. Powerful telescopes reveal that this pattern of hierarchical clustering prevails throughout the cosmos. What binds the universe together are the cosmic strings which are hypothesized to have some bizarre properties. Long long ago Yajnvalkya had said this to his disciple Aruni: This world and the next world and all beings and all natural phenomenon are strung together by the thread, the Inner Controller the Immortal, the Brahman.

Kabir, a medieval saint poet, has described the mystery of the world in the same language:

No one knows the secret of the weaver

who spreads his warp through the universe.

He dug two ditches, sky, and earth,

made two spools, sun and moon,

filled his shuttle with a thousand threads,

and weaves till today: a difficult length!

Kabir says, they are joined by actions.

Good threads and bad,

that fellow weaves both.

The spiritual metaphor and the scientific metaphor converge with common insights. Creation mythologies and quantum mechanics meet in their intution about the universe. The polaristic position in the anthropological theory of nature and culture is nullified by traditional vision and modern science, both providing the picture of a coherent self-organizing universe. In human thoughts things may appear separable, in reality they are not so.

The research and activity of the IGNCA aim at re-defining the arts and re-establishing the unity of the human cultures in a non-linear relationship as existing in the honeycomb. Inter-relationship of things in the living universe must be taken for granted. Difference between one culture and another or between the people of the past and the present are simply differences of emphasis. Further, the approach of the IGNCA in all its work is inter-disciplinary. Here, theory and practice, textual and oral, verbal, visual and kinetic are seen as a semiotic whole and not as single items to be aggregated.

Baidyanath Saraswati

    

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