1 Since 1973, when research on Hedayat's Ivory Tower: Structural Analysis of The Blind Owl began, this author has continuously worked with this and other works of Hedayat. As result, a translation with an exhaustive explication de texte for the novella is now in its final stages.

The Blind Owl is a difficult book. Language is one factor in its difficulty, but the main factor, so often played down by critics who would rather hash and rehash the old concepts, is the impenetrable symbolism in the novella. It is the symbolism that clouds the concepts and dissipates the relations that should bring the concepts together coherently and meaningfully. This is why the translator of the novella often finds himself literally among islands of vague, seemingly unrelated concepts, and is forced to intuit some sense into them. The more objective the translation, the greater the risk of deviation from established norms.

Fortunately, as this essay shows, inroads have finally been made whereby we can look at The Blind Owl from within its own structural and semantic framework and reach conclusions that can then be supported by the historical and socio-political milieu in Iran at the time of its publication. The path to the discovery of the message of Hedayat is not easy, especially for any serious student of Iranian and Islamic studies who examines the novella for the first time. Research in fields totally outside Iranian and Islamic studies is called for. The message itself, however, is as universal as the framework that carries it.

The work cited above, of which the present article is a condensed version (a portion of a chapter on symbolism), combines the efforts of Western and Eastern scholars, focusing on the Indo-Iranian and Indo-European influences on the novella from a theoretical and abstract point of view. It also deals with the message of the novella-freedom-on three distinct levels: individual, social, and cosmic.

Because of the complexities of this article and to avoid overlapping, no attempt is made to present bibliographical references, explanatory notes, and criticisms other than what is essential for the discussion. This information is available elsewhere and need not be repeated here.

I would like to thank the following colleagues for their assistance and encouragement in the writing of this article: M.A..R. Barker, Peter Chelkowski, L.P. Elwell-Sutton, William Hanaway, Annemarie Schimmel, and Gemot L. Windfuhr. 1

² Nag is a snake-spirit with long fangs and a slit in the middle of its upper lip. In Buddhistic lore, it is the life force which determines birth and rebirth and hence it is connected with the Wheel of Life. The legend of the Buddha tells how the Nag-serpent wound itself around his body seven times, but, since it could not crush him, it turned into a youth bowing low before Gautame (cf., the final scene of The Blind Owl where the narrator faces the Whore). The Wheel of Rebirth is closely related to the law of moral compensation, and in the sense of action-reaction and cause and effect, it rules over the lives of all those who have not succeeded in achieving Nirvana. Nirvana is a state of supreme Enlightenment beyond the conception of the intellect. It is the annihilation of all we know as the personal, separate self.2

³The Blind Owl is a comlex network of structure and meaning. Much of this is not readily observable. For the benefit of those unable to review Hedayat's Ivory Tower, a brief summary of the findings therein follows: the study opens with a survey of Hedayat's life and what we know about him. In this section the lack of our knowledge regarding Hedayat the man is emphasized, as elsewhere the wealth of such knowledge has been assumed. The book includes a literal translation of The Blind Owl and briefly reviews the previous English translation demonstrating the need for a final, annotated translation. Significant variations in meaning result from differing translation of relatively insignificant words such as whore instead of bitch and Nag-serpent instead of cobra. The troublesome last sentence of the work is discussed in depth and reasons are given for the incomprehensibility of the previous translation. The structural analysis of The Blind Owl follows the translation. This, the core of Hedayat's Ivory Tower, has opened the way for this essay. The author found, as have others, that large passages from Rilke's Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge appear verbatum in the work. However, he disseminated a pattern as to the placement of these passages. It appears that Hedayat used the life story of the Buddha as it appears in Asvaghosha's the Buddha-carita as the structural frame of The Blind Owl. The substance of all the events and their sequence in the Buddha-carita are carefully worked into The Blind Owl in a cyclic style--it is at the break between these cycles, for instance, that the passages from Rilke appear. Hedayat's Ivory Tower carefully documents these complex structured cycles that underlie the entire work, detailing Rilke's influence and the various motifs which Hedayat drew upon from Zoroastrianism and from the Ruba'iyyat of Omar Khayyam. Clearly established is Hedayat's mastery of the Buddhistic lore, his familiarity with Rilke and Zoroastrianism plus the fact that The Blind Owl is a carefully crafted work involving years of planning.

All of these are discussed in the context of the literary media of the latter part of the 1920's in France. This is the time during which Rilke reached the height of his towering influence on European literature, and the time of Rilke's death. It is also the time of the inception of the first Buddhist circles in Paris. An encyclopaedic man of Hedayat's caliber and curiosity could hardly have been able to resist the attractive temptation of this decade.3

⁴ Although this summary and the summaries that will be provided later for portions of The Blind Owl are quite inclusive, they do not replace the actual text. No doubt the reader would be better able to judge Hedayat's possible use of the Bardo Thodol (The Tibetan Book of the Dead) in The Blind Owl if he were to examine the latter with reference to the full text of the former. For the purposes of this article, however, this summary seems to be sufficient. 4

⁵ Sangsara (also Samsara), is the world of becoming. Sangsara or life on the earth-plane is the antithesis of Nirvana.

Maya is the mysterious process that engenders and maintains the cosmos. Maya is an illusion in the sense that it obscures the true nature of the world from man. The mistaking of Maya for the true nature of the cosmos is called Avidya or Ignorance. Man's ignorance results in his clinging to Maya. The clinging to Maya i s called Tanha or Desire. The trio: Maya, Avidya and, Tanha which form a closed cycle, Karma, are incessantly at work. Each member causes and supports the others: Ignorance (Avidya) results from a failure to identify Illusion (Maya) as such, which causes clinging to Illusion (Tanha). Tanha supports the illusion and fosters reliance upon it. Thus, according to the rule of Karma, man's preoccupation with Maya is based on his ignorance as the latter makes progress and is transformed into the other elements of the cycle, especially Desire. The ultimate release from the Wheel, or the achievement of Nirvana, is realized only when man can abandon even the desire for abandoning desire. 5

⁶Karma is action in the sense of action-reaction. It is the law of compensation, a doctrine indivisible from that of Rebirth. 6

⁷ Loka refers to one of the six possible worlds to which a soul, if it is saved, is sent. The narrator of The Blind Owl is destined for the Preta-world or the world of unhappy ghosts. 7

⁸For the significance of Farvardin, see A History of Zoroastrianism by Mary Boyce (1975), vol. I, pp. 119-120; also Taqizadeh's Old Iranian Calendars (1938), pp 49ff. 8

⁹ Cf. Hedayal's Ivory Tower, p. 53. All quotations are from a revised translation of the novella based on my recent analysis. Certain inconsistencies between the two translations is expected. 9

¹⁰ Ibid., P. 54. 10

¹¹Shah Abdol-Azim is a religious complex (including the tomb of Reza Shah) situated among the ruins of Ray, south of Tehran. 11

¹²For details on Buddhistic cosmography, see The Tibetan Book of the Dead, pp. 61-66, 146 (footnote 5), 184. 12

¹³ The prototype of the dungeon story, of course, is the circle in the centre of the Wheel of Rebirth within which three animals (a pig, a peacock and a serpent) are biting each other's tails circling the Wheel perpetually ad infinitum (for details see Anne Bancroft's Religions of the East, pp. 124ff.). 13

¹⁴ Cf., Hedayat's Ivory Tower, p. 88. 14

¹⁵ Ibid., p. 98. 15

¹⁶ Setar or sitar is a lute-like instrument with a long, fretted neck, a resonating gourd or gourds, and usually six playing strings and a number of strings that vibrate sympathetically. 16

¹⁷ Cf., Hedayat's Ivory Tower, p. 103. 17

¹⁸ Ibid., p. 119. 18

¹⁹ Ibid., P. 99.19

²⁰ Ibid., pp. 121-22. 20

²¹ Cf., Hedayat's Ivory Tower, p. 130. 21

²² The song that the narrator sings is:

Let us go and drink mey,
The wine of the Kingdom of Ray;
If not today, then what day?

In terms of its structure this song is reminescent of the song of the devotees who have practiced it in a thoroughly scientific manner under a competent guru. In Chonyid Bardo these devotees take refuge in the sacred essence Mantras:

Hail to the Jewel in the Lotus
Hail to the Lord of Speech
Hail to the Holder of the Dorje

These essence Mantras, which aid the devotee in focusing his concentration, praise the three protectors of Lamaism; the first is the essence Mantra of the Bodhissativa Clenrazee (Skt. Avalokita), "The Seer with keen eyes," The Great Pitier; the second, the Bodhissativa Jampalyang (Skt. Manjughosha), "The God of Mystic Wisdom,'" and the third, the Bodhissativa Chakdor (Skt. Vajra-Pani), "The Wielder of the Thunderbolt". 22

²³ Hedayat's Ivory Tower, p. 130. 23

²⁴ Ibid., p. 131. 24

²⁵ Cf., Hedayat's Ivory Tower, p. 129. 25

²⁶ Cf., Hedayat's Ivory Tower, p. 125. 26

²⁷ Cf., Hedayat's Ivory Tower, p. 48. 27

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