Oriental Religions in Latin American Literature
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O Oriental Religions in Latin American Definition Literature Theosophy and eastern religions and creeds such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Shinto, Confucianism, and Taoism have influenced Latin American lit- Ignacio Lo´pez-Calvo erature since the Modernistas. Canonical authors School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts, such as Neruda, Borges, Cortázar, Paz, and University of California, Merced, Merced Sarduy have addressed these eastern beliefs in CA, USA different ways. While for the Modernista they were an escapist tool and Neruda openly rejects them, other authors such as Tablada and Paz Keywords resort to them to try to understand their own countries or to find the keys of eroticism (the Eastern religions; Latin American Literature; case of Paz and Sarduy). In turn, for Borges, Buddhism; Shinto; Confucianism; Taoism; Hin- eastern religions are a metaphor for infinite duism; Theosophy; Chinese religions; Oriental- time, fantasy, and utopia and for Sarduy a path ism; Vicente Fatone; Alejandro Korn; Pablo to personal enlightenment. Neruda; Octavio Paz; Jorge Luis Borges; Julio Cortázar; Ce´sar Aira; Juan Jose´ Tablada; Augusto Higa; Enrique Go´mez Carrillo; Introduction Bernardo Carvalho; Severo Sarduy; Zoe´ Valde´s; Antonio Chuffat Latour. Regino Pedroso; Mayra Given the wealth of authors and works, the topic Montero; Leonardo Padura Fuentes; Rube´n of the presence of Eastern religions in Latin Darı´o; Leopoldo Lugones; Amado Nervo; American literature would be more appropriate Gabriela Mistral; Ricardo Rojas; Arturo for a book than for a short essay. In any case, in Capdevila; Ricardo Guiraldes the next pages I will summarize what has already been studied and will suggest the analysis of other Latin American works whose dialogue with east- Part of the information included in this essay was taken ern religions has not been studied in so much from my books Dragons in the Land of the Condor: Writing Tusán in Peru (U of Arizona P, 2014); The Affinity depth yet indicating, whenever possible, the rea- of the Eye: Writing Nikkei in Peru (U of Arizona P, 2013); sons for the authors’ attraction to or rejection of and Imaging the Chinese in Cuban Literature and Culture these creeds. (UP of Florida, 2008). # Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015 H. P. P. Gooren (ed.), Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-08956-0_159-1 2 Oriental Religions in Latin American Literature Buddhism in Argentina of Eastern religions and philosophical concepts. Fernández’s adoption of Hindu and Buddhist the- Several critics have dealt with this approach to ories through his readings of Schopenhauer Latin American literature in their studies about would end up influencing several of Borges’s Orientalism. Julia Kushigian, for instance, essays and short stories, including, according to addresses it in her seminal 1991 Orientalism in Betancort, the essays “La naderı´a de la the Hispanic Literary Tradition, as does Araceli personalidad,” “El tiempo circular,” “Notas Tinajero in her 2004 Orientalismo en el sobre Walt Withman,” “Dos antiguos modernismo hispanoamericano or Axel Gasquet problemas,” “Nueva refutacio´n del tiempo,” in his 2007 Oriente al sur. Gasquet, in his forth- “Magias parciales del Quijote,” “La naderı´a de coming Mirando a Oriente: Historia cultural del la Personalidad,” “La doctrina de los ciclos,” and orientalismo argentino 1900–1950, explores the “El arte narrativo y la magia”; the poems “El influence of Eastern religions in Argentine phi- truco” and “Ajedrez”; and the short stories “El losophers. One of them is Vicente Fatone acercamiento a Almotásim” and “Las ruinas (1903–1962), who often drew from Hindu, Bud- circulares.” For instance, in his 1942 essay “Una dhist, and other Asian philosophies. Tellingly, his alegorı´a china,” he concludes, “The love for the book El budismo “nihilista” was translated into cycles of enormous time and of the unlimited English in India. According to Gasquet, spaces is typical of the Hindustan nations” “Fatone’s purpose is not to promote the ‘import’ (Betancort 79). Similarly, Kushigian draws atten- of Nipponese moral qualities, but rather to point tion to the presence of Buddhism in Borges’s out the common moral terrain shared by the Jap- peculiar representations of the East: “The Orient, anese world and the Western ethical substratum presented ironically, with familiarity, and at based on Christian values. In his view, Christian- times inverted and parodied, is a metaphor in ity has qualities akin to those of bushido or Zen Borges’s works for infinite time, fantasy, and Buddhism” (n.p.). Likewise, in his 2008 working utopia” (19). According to her, Borges’s Orient paper “El orientalismo argentino (1900–1940). is textual, modeled after his literary readings. De la revista Nosotros al Grupo Sur,” Gasquet A hitherto unexplored eastern influence is the mentions that the Argentine philosopher presence of Buddhism in the works of another Alejandro Korn belonged to a Buddhist circle in canonical Argentine author, Julio Cortázar. In an La Plata (12). interview with Sara Castro-Klaren, Cortázar A canonical Argentinean author influenced by mentioned that he became an avid reader of the Eastern religions is Jorge Luis Borges, who Japanese author Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki, “who became familiarized with Buddhism thanks to meant for me a tremendous existential shock” his reading of texts by the German existentialist (25), and acknowledged this influence on differ- philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Eventually, as ent occasions: “I felt until what point the West Gasquet points out, Borges would write, along sees philosophical systems as closed and, by con- with Alicia Jurado, the book Que´ es el budismo trast, the Orient is the opposite, total opening and, (1976) (“El orientalismo” 21). Along these lines, if possible, the negation of causal concepts, in the Sonia Betancort points out the following com- case of time and space. All this seemed to me ments in his text “Ginebra,” included in his very methodologically useful for a Western man” 1984 Atlas: “I owe it, since 1914, the revelation (González Bermejo 1986, p. 73; Quoted by Boyás of French, Latin, German, expressionism, Scho- Go´mez n.p.). In fact, the first title that Cortázar penhauer, Buddha’s doctrine, Taoism, Conrad, chose for his masterpiece Hopscotch was “Man- Lafcadio Hearn and nostalgia for Buenos Aires” dala,” the name of the ritual geometric design (Betancort 70). According to Betancort, along symbolizing the universe that aids meditation in with his reading of Schopenhauer’s texts, his Hinduism and Buddhism. In the plot, mandalas friendship with Macedonio Fernández and the are mentioned in chapters 18, “just as mandalas painter Xul Solar opened the door to the world are allegorical for everyone else” (73), and 82, “I Oriental Religions in Latin American Literature 3 connect with the Center – whatever it may straight and narrow path to Heaven without need be. Writing is sketching my mandala and at the of Vedanta or Zen or collected eschatologies, yes, same time going through it, inventing purification reach Heaven with kicks, get there with the peb- by purifying one’s self” (402). And there are ble” (215). The same applies when Oliveira says numerous other references to Zen Buddhism to himself, “We’re not Buddha, and there are no and other Eastern religions, including some to trees here to sit under the lotus position” (291). karma, “this mirror is karma” (157), and the Furthermore, in chapter 95 the study of Zen Bud- yin-yang, “sometimes the Yin is the ascendancy, dhism is described as out of fashion: “In some sometimes the Yang” (159). note or other, Morelli had shown himself to be Early, in the fourth chapter of Hopscotch, we curiously explicit about his intentions. Giving sense Cortázar’s interest in Zen: “‘She closes her evidence of a strange anachronism, he became eyes and hits the bull’s-eye,’ thought Oliveira. interested in studies or nonstudies such as Zen ‘The Zen method of archery, precisely’... Buddhism, which in those years was the rash of When La Maga would ask about Zen... the beat generation” (430). By contrast, in rare Gregorovius would try to explain the rudiments cases, the engagement with Zen Buddhism of metaphysics...Finally, she convinced herself becomes less casual. Thus, in chapter 57 Ossip that she had understood Zen and sighed with Gregorovious claims that “Zen has a precise fatigue” (25). When La Maga asks what the explanation for the possibilities of pre-ubiquity, Bardo is, Oliveira first explains that it is a book something similar to the feeling you’ve just for the dead in which lamas make revelations to described, if in fact you did have such a feeling” those who are about to die in order to guide them (353). Finally, in chapter 95, E´ tienne makes the to salvation, only to end up admitting that he has observation that Morelli “turned loose his Zen no idea of what that book actually teaches. Then, phrase, and one kept on listening to Ossip Gregorovius adds that the Bardo returns us it – sometimes for fifty pages, the old monster” to a pure life precisely when it is too late. Like (431). As seen, although for the most part Zen, Sarduy, therefore, Cortázar plays with the idea Tibetan Buddhism, and Hinduism are engaged that, regardless of the interest Westerners may from a distance by Cortázar’s characters, these have in Eastern religions, this world is too opaque religions and philosophies are a constant in Hop- to them. Later, in chapter 28, Ronald confesses scotch, as proof of the author’s avowed interest his desire to learn Tibetan Buddhism from his and curiosity. friend Wong: “‘Wong put me through several Yet another Argentine author, Ce´sar Aira, has tests,’ Ronald was explaining. ‘He says that approached Buddhism in his novella El pequen˜o I have enough intelligence to start destroying it monje budista (2005), where a tiny Buddhist profitably.