From: C R Culver <CRCulver@aol.com>
Subject: Re:  (urth) Mellow yellow pharmicon (remember?!)
Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 21:32:36 EST


[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

>It is far more likely that the robes refer back to Buddhism than to the odd
American Hare Krishna cult.<

Probably they go back to Buddhism. According to Mahayana Buddhism, the Buddha
made his robes from the cloth strewn around the Ganges, funeral wrappings,
menstural napkins, and all that stuff. They were mostly saffron, I imagine.
Apply whatever symbolism you want from that to the BotNS, if you'd like.
Interestingly enough, Mahayana is the vehicle of Buddhism in which the robes
of the modern-day followers are *not* saffron, in my experience. Pure Land and
Zen robes are black.


>Jonas, who certainly comes from the past, but not that far into the past.<

Careful there. Jonas knew of Korea and the Korean language (he could tell
KLS's nationality from his name), so he comes from a time not too remote from
modern Korea because a significant amount of linguistic drift has not
occurred.

>That must be right. I know who could fix him up! Well, maybe Ossipago could<

Ossipago and Sidero worry me. I wonder if they are relics from a past science,
kept in repair but no longer made (like the fliers), or if they are still
produced. Do the Hierodules still have the ability to heal Jonas?

Christopher R. Culver <crculver@aol.com>
http://members.aol.com/crculver/index.html

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/