Читать книгу The Rise of Wisdom Moon - Krishna mishra - Страница 38

introduction

among those who affirmed that a sentiment of peace can serve as an appropriate focus for literary creation, and he tells us this explicitly, affirming at the outset that he has written “a play conveying the sentiment of peace” (1.7).

But how to convey such a sentiment? To elicit horror, one can show frightening things, for humor things that are funny, and so on. The attempt to display peace directly—perhaps by depicting a group of persons in silent meditation—is guaranteed to be merely a bore. The only strategy that might work is to arrive at peace through contrast. Peace becomes dramatically interesting only in relation to its opposites: war, struggle, the erotic distractions, and so on. Krishna·mishra very well understood this and, using the contrastive categories underscored in Indian traditions, sought to realize the sentiment of peace as the conclusion of a journey through what peace is not.12

In order to achieve this end, Krishna·mishra’s work depends on one of the fundamental dichotomies informing classical Indian thought, that between pravrtti and nivrtti.13 The pair is often translated, misleadingly I think, as “activity” and “inactivity.” It is important, however, to gain a more nuanced sense of their meaning, as this provides an essential key to understanding the play as whole.

To begin, we may cite a popular verse that states: “I know the dharma, but it is not what I engage in; I know non-dharma, too, but it is not what I desist from.”14 Here, I have translated pravrtti as “what I engage in” and nivrtti as “what I desist from.” The relevant contrast is not one between activity and inactivity, but between the forward, outgoing channeling of energies into a particular pattern ________

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