76 § The Divine City
W E have already often spoken of the 'divine city' (Brahma-pura in the Hindu tradition). [1] What is truly means is, of course, the centre of the being, represented by the heart which does in fact correspond to it in the corporeal organism, and this centre is the dwelling place of Purusha, identified with the divine Principle (Brahma) considered as the 'internal co-ordinator' (antar-yāmī) who rules the entire collectivity of this being's faculties by 'nonacting' activity which is the immediate consequence of his mere presence. The name Purusha is for this reason interpreted as meaning puri-shaya, that is, he who resides or reposes (shaya) in the being as in a city (pura). This interpretation obviously derives from Nirukta, but Coomaraswamy has remarked that it could at the same time also represent, exceptionally for such cases, a true etymological derivation; [2] and this point, because of the parallels it suggests, deserves further attention.
First of all, it is to be noted that the Greek polis and the Latin civitas, which designate the city, by their roots correspond respectively to the two elements from which the word puru-sha is formed, even though this may not be immediately apparent because of certain phonetic changes which take place from one language to another. In fact, the Sanskrit root pri or pur becomes, in the European languages, ple or pel, [3] so that pura and polis are strictly equivalent. This root expresses the idea of plenitude, from the qualitative point of view (Sanskrit puru and pūrna; Greek pleos; Latin plenus; English full), and from the quantitative perspective, that of plurality (Greek polus; Latin plus; German viel). Obviously a city does not exist except by the gathering together of a plurality of individuals who inhabit it and who constitute its 'population' (the word populus being likewise of the same origin), which could already justify the use, for its designation, of terms such as those under
discussion. But this is only the most outward aspect, and what is much more important, with a view to probing to the depth of things, is the idea of plenitude. In this respect, it is known that the plenum and the void, considered as correlatives, are one of the traditional representations of the complementarity of the active and passive principles. In the present case, it can be said that Purusha, by his presence, fills the 'divine City' and all its extensions and dependencies, that is, the whole being which, without this presence, would be only an empty 'field' (kshetra) or, in other words, a pure potentiality deprived of any actualised existence. It is Purusha who, according to the Upanishadic texts, enlightens 'this all' (sarvam idam) by his radiation, this being the image of his 'non-acting' activity by which all manifestation is realised according to the very 'measure' that is determined by the actual extent of this radiation, [4] just as in the symbolism of the Apocalypse in Christianity, the 'celestial Jerusalem' is enlightened in its entirety by the light of the Lamb who dwells in its centre 'as sacrificed', and therefore in a state of 'non-action'. [5] We can add further, in this connection, that the sacrifice of the Lamb 'from the foundation of the world' is really the same thing as the Vedic sacrifice of Purusha dividing himself in appearance at the origin of manifestation in order to dwell simultaneously in all beings and in all worlds, [6] so that even while being always essentially one and containing all principially in his very unity, outwardly he appears as multiple, which again corresponds exactly to the two ideas of plenitude and of plurality mentioned just now; and this is also why it is said that 'there are two Purushas in the world, the one destructible and the other indestructible; the first is shared out among all beings, the second is immutable. [7]
On the other hand, the Latin civitas derives from a root, kei, which in Western languages is the equivalent of the Sanskrit shī (whence shaya). Its primary sense is that of repose (Greek keisthai, to be recumbent), of which that of stable residence or of stable abode (as in a city) is only a direct consequence. Purusha, reposing in the 'divine City', can be said to be its sole 'citizen' (civis), [8] as the multitude of inhabitants who 'people' it really exist only by him, being produced entirely by his own light, and animated by his own breath (prāna), luminous rays and vital breath being in this context nothing other than two aspects of the sūtrātmā. If one considers the 'divine City' (or the 'Kingdom of God' which is 'within us', according to the Gospel) in its strictest sense, as being above all the very centre of the being, it goes without saying that it is Purusha alone who dwells there in reality;
but the extension of this term to the total being, with all its faculties and all its constituent elements, is also legitimate for the reasons we have just explained, and this extension changes nothing in that respect, since it all depends entirely on Purusha and even derives its whole existence from him. The being's vital functions and faculties, in their relationship with Purusha, are often compared to the subjects or servants of a king, and there is among them a hierarchy similar to that of different castes in human society. [9] The palace where the king resides and from which he directs all, is in the centre or the heart of the city, [10] its essential part, all the rest being in a sense no more than prolongations of this centre or 'extensions' (a sense also contained in the root kei); but of course subjects are never in a state of absolute dependence with respect to their king, as is the case with what is symbolised here, because even though the royal function is unique in the city and the situation of the 'governor' is essentially different from that of the 'governed', [11] the king himself is nevertheless a human being like his subjects, and not a principle of another order. Thus, another and more exact image is that offered by the play of marionettes, as these are animated only by the will of a man who makes them move as he wills (and the thread by which he makes them move is, naturally, yet another image of sūtrātmā). A particularly striking myth relating to this is found in the Kathā-Sarit-Sāgara. [12] This describes a city populated entirely by wooden automata which behave in every way as living beings except that they lack speech. At the centre is a palace where dwells a man who is the 'sole consciousness' (ēkakam chītanam) of the city, and the cause of all the movements of the automata, which he himself has made; and it is to be noted that this man is said to be a carpenter, which assimilates him to Vishvakarma, that is, to the divine Principle insofar as it makes and orders the Universe. [13]
This last remark leads us to specify that the symbolism of the 'divine City' admits of a macrocosmic as well as a microcosmic application, even though it is the microcosmic application which we have considered almost exclusively
in all that has preceded. One could even speak of several macrocosmic applications at different levels, according to whether it is a question of a particular world, that is, of a determined state of existence (and the symbolism of the 'celestial Jerusalem' refers in reality to this case), or of the entirety of universal manifestation. In all these, whether it be the centre of a world or the centre of all the worlds that is considered, there is in this centre a divine Principle (Purusha dwelling in the sun, which is the spiritus Mundi of the Western traditions) which, for all that is manifested in the corresponding domain, plays the same part of 'internal co-ordinator' as that played by the Purusha residing in the heart of each being for all that is included in the possibilities of that being. There remains only to transpose (without any other modification, in order to apply it to the multitude of manifested beings) that which, in the 'microcosmic' application, is said of the different faculties of a particular being; the symbolism of the sun as the 'Heart of the World [14] explains, moreover, why the sūtrātmā which links each being to the central Purusha is then represented by the 'solar ray' called sushumnā. [15] The various representations of the sūtrātmā also show that the apparent division of Purusha, in the macrocosmic as well as in the microcosmic orders, must not be conceived as a fragmentation, which would be in contradiction with his essential unity, but rather as an 'extension' comparable to that of the rays proceeding from the centre; and at the same time, as the sūtrātmā is likened to a thread (sūtra) by its very designation, the symbolism is also closely related to that of weaving. [16]
There is still one more point to be made, albeit briefly: to be legitimate and valid from the traditional point of view, that is, to be truly 'normal', the constitution and organisation of every city or human society must take the 'divine City' for model as far as possible; we say 'as far as possible', for in the present conditions of our world at least, the imitation of this model (which is strictly speaking an 'archetype') is bound to be always imperfect, as is shown by what has already been said about the comparison of Purusha with a king; but however that may be, it is only in the measure that this is realised that we have the right, strictly speaking, to talk of 'civilisation'. It is enough to say that all that is spoken of in the modern world as 'civilisation', all that one likes to think of as 'the civilisation' par excellence, could only be considered as a caricature of true civilisation, and it often goes
so far as to be its exact opposite in many respects. Not only does an antitraditional civilisation such as that of the modern world not really deserve the name of civilisation, but in all rigour, it is even the very antithesis of true civilisation.