57 § The Eye of the Needle

As we said previously, one of the representations of the symbol of the 'narrow gate' is the 'eye of the needle' which is mentioned with this meaning in a well-known Gospel text.^[1] The English expression _needle's eye_ is particularly significant in this respect, for it links this symbol all the more directly to some of its equivalents, such as the 'eye' of the dome in architectural symbolism; these are diverse representations of the 'solar gate' which itself is also designated as the 'Eye of the World'. It will also be noted that the needle, when placed upright, may be taken as a representation of the World Axis; and in this case, the perforated extremity being at the top, there is an exact coincidence between this position of the 'eye' of the needle and the 'eye' of the dome.

The same symbol has yet other interesting connections which have been pointed out by Coomaraswamy:^[2] in a _Jātaka_ tale dealing with a miraculous needle (which, moreover, is really identical with the _vajra_), the eye of the needle is designated in Pali by the word _pāsa_.^[3] This word is the same as the Sanskrit word _pāsha_ which originally had the meaning of 'knot' or 'loop'. This seems first of all to indicate, as Coomaraswamy observed, that in a very remote epoch needles were not perforated as they were later, but simply bent over at one end so as to form a kind of loop through which the thread was passed; but what is more important for us to consider is the relationship that exists between this application of the word _pāsha_ to the eye of the needle and its other more common meanings which are also derived from the initial idea of 'knot'.

In Hindu symbolism, the _pāsha_ is in fact most often a 'running knot' or 'lasso' used to capture animals in hunting. In this form, it is one of the chief emblems of Mrityu or Yama, and likewise of Varuna; and the 'animals' that they take by means of this _pāsha_ are in reality all the living beings (_pāshu_). Hence also the meaning of 'bond': the animal, once it is taken, finds itself tied by the running knot which tightens around him; similarly, the living being is bound by the limiting conditions which hold it in its particular state of manifested existence. In order to come out of this state of _pāshu_ it is necessary that the being be set free from these conditions, that is to say, in symbolic terms, that he escape from the _pāshu_, or that he pass through the running knot without its tightening about him. This is the same thing as to say that the being passes through the jaws of Death without them closing upon him,^[4] exactly as the 'threading of the needle' represents the passage through that same 'solar gateway' in the symbolism of embroidery. We will add that the thread passing through the needle's eye has its equivalent in another symbolism, that of archery, in the arrow piercing the centre of the target; and that mark moreover used to be designated as the 'butt',^[5] a term which is very significant in this respect, since the passage in question, by which the exit from the cosmos is achieved, is also the 'butt' that the being must attain in order to be 'delivered' finally from the bonds of manifested existence.

This last remark leads us to specify, with Coomaraswamy, that it is only as regards the 'last death', which immediately precedes deliverance and after which there is no return to a conditioned state, that the 'threading of the needle' truly represents the passage through the 'solar gateway'; for in every other case, there cannot yet be a question of an 'exit from the cosmos'. None the less, one may also speak analogically and in a relative sense of 'passing through the eye of the needle'^[6] or of 'escaping the _pāsha_', in order to designate every passage from one state to another, such a passage always being a 'death' in relation to the antecedent state at the same time that it is a 'birth' into the subsequent state, as we have already explained on many occasions.

There is yet another important aspect of the symbolism of the _pāsha_ of which we have not spoken hitherto: this is the aspect under which it relates more particularly to the 'vital knot',^[7] and it remains for us to show that this, too, belongs strictly to the same order of considerations. In fact, the 'vital knot' represents the bond which holds together the different constitutive elements of the individuality. It is this bond, therefore, which keeps the being in his condition of _pāshu_; for when the bond is undone or broken, the