Mellow yellow pharmicon (remember?!)

C R Culver · 26 Mar 1998, 02:32 · from urth-v0008.mbox · original

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From: C R Culver <CRCulver at aol.com>
Subject: Re:  (urth) Mellow yellow pharmicon (remember?!)
Date: Wed, 25 Mar 1998 21:32:36 EST
Message-ID: <urth-v0008-0665 at digest.urth.net>
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[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other work=
s]

>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 Budd=
ha
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 fr=
om
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 coul=
d<

Ossipago and Sidero worry me. I wonder if they are relics from a past scien=
ce,
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 at aol.com>
http://members.aol.com/crculver/index.html

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

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