Читать книгу The Rise of Wisdom Moon - Krishna mishra - Страница 22

introduction

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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