Проблемы литератур Дальнего Востока. Часть 2

Секция 5 • Panel 5 Проблемы литератур Дальнего Востока. Т. 1. 2018 280 plot was uncovered, and Eatherly was arrested and prosecuted, serving time in jail for this offense 15 . Claude Eatherly was a controversial person but Muktibodh made him a symbol of conscience and compassion. CID informer tells the author in the story that, who does not know that Claude Eatherly is a name of voice of the soul that opposes nuclear war. Eatherly is not a mental patient. He is a symbol of spiritual conflicts and unrest. And later in the story when narrator refutes his claim that India is America he says that difficulty with you is that you don’t understand my intents and then he clarifies Claude Eatherly may not exist in his bodily form here but restless souls like him might exist. And later after some deliberations he proves that the people like you who are conscious sensitive are Claude Eatherly 16 . Like this story, the Disciple of Brahmarakchasa is also set against the backdrop of mystery. The opening lines of this story set the tone: The disciple’s face radiated with some inner light as he alighted from eighth floor to seventh floor’s lonely steps of that majestic building. He was not impressed by the miracle that he had just witnessed. That huge thunderous iron-arm crossing an entire length of three rooms kept flashing again and again in front of his eyes. The sacredness of that arm mattered to him but not as a miracle. There was ‘something’ behind that miracle that is churning him continuously. Is it not that — ‘that something’— contains the truth of a great scholar’s life? Yes, it is! It definitely is!! In Hindu mythology, Brahmarakchasas are considered to be fierce demon spirits. It is actually the spirit of a Brahmin, a dead scholar of high birth, who has done evil things in his life or has misused his knowledge, so he has to suffer as a Brahmarakchasa after his or her death. If he wants liberation from this he has to find an able disciple who can impart his great knowledge, otherwise he would remain Brahmarakchasa forever. As Lu Xun turned china’s old traditional tales into stories of contemporary sensibilities, Muktibodh turns this myth into a story of moral responsibility that knowledge or wisdom inheres.Brahmarakchasa proclaims to his disciple in the story that “I have churned all the knowledge of the world but unfortunately could not find any suitable disciple to dissipate/disseminate it to him or her. This is the reason my soul remained attached to this world and I as a Brahmarakchasa remained here. … and then you came…by receiving my wisdom you liberated me. I have fulfilled my responsibilities that wisdom inheres. Now my responsibility is all yours and till you impart my given wisdom to someone else you can’t be liberated” 17 . In European Enlightenment Knowledge was understood as a form of rational functionalism, where it was desired as a means of mastering and making use of the world. Implicit in such a view is hostility towards any form of mystery. Complicit with functional rational- ism realist fiction, as argued by Adorno and Horkheimer 18 naturalises a banal view of the world as familiar, morally and socially categorised and predictable. Here what is unknown becomes a source of fear rather than reverence. Lu Xun and Muktibodh both fathom unknown not fearfully but with reverence.