LIFE AS MYTH
JOURNAL
JOURNAL 2006
Scheherazade Project
Telling untold stories
SPRING 2006
A living tapestry
The churning of the milky ocean
LIFEWORKS
ATLAS
SPRING 2006
INDRA'S NET
Indra was the most ancient of all gods. Before Creation, before Being, there was Indra. In order to display his majesty to the other gods, one day (which is the same as many thousands upon thousands of years to man) Indra built a palace on the pinnacle of Paradise. At the center of the palace was a spacious banquet hall which held the eternal feast. Here, music played unceasingly. Here, golden light glowed perpetually. Here, Amrita, the nectar of eternal life, was served in gilded goblets.
When Indra saw what he had made, he was well pleased. Yet he labored on. By dawn of the next day, he had forged a web of golden threads, which hung like a canopy in the sky spreading infinitely in all directions.
When Indra saw what he had made, he sighed with pleasure. The breath that was that sigh rippled out in all directions. And as the breath of Indra caught on the knots of the web, a luminous jewel formed at each joint. And so on and so on, so that soon the sky over Indra’s palace was filled with a golden canopy studded with delicate jewels, each jewel reflecting the one next to it, spreading out infinitely in all directions.
Pelican nebula. National Optical Astonomy Observatory.
