Rohanda or Shikasta?

When we speak of “the Fall,” should we speak of the Fallen World or, instead, of Fallen Man? That’s an interesting distinction for me. Yes, I know. For some the most fundamental feature of the fallen world is that living beings feed on each other: predation. That seems to put evil squarely at the heart of nature—based on sympathy. I wouldn’t want something to hunt and eat me. And that seems also to answer the question simply. Fallen world. A place where the living, to live, eat other living creatures, that has to be a fallen world. End of discussion?

Predation and its link with the Fall comes from Isaiah in two verses (Revised Standard):

The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
and the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
and the calf and the lion and the fatling together,
and a little child shall lead them. [11:6]

Isaiah liked this cluster of images. Much later he repeats them:

The wolf and the lamb shall feed together,
the lion shall eat straw like the ox;
and dust shall be the serpent’s food. [65:25]

In the first volume of her exalted sort of science fiction beyond SF, Canopus in Argos, Doris Lessing projects an image of the planet earth in its paradisaical state, its fallen state, and then again restored. The first volume is called Shikasta, the name of the planet after the Fall, as it were. She derives the word from the Persian word for broken. The earth before the Fall and after the restoration is called Rohanda, derived from fruitful (from Tolkien’s Rohan, I assume). In a most telling chapter showing the restoration, people suddenly notice that predatory animals no longer hunt; they consume vegetation, much as in Isaiah we see the wolf and the lamb grazing side by side.

In my mind the discussion doesn’t really end there. Staying in the West for the moment, I note that vegetation, poor domain, benefits neither from the End of Time in Isaiah nor Lessing’s restoration. Grass still gets eaten. The fruit of the trees is still in peril. We justify the eating of meat by arguing that animals have no meaningful consciousness—and plants even less. But how do we know that?

Expanding our view to encompass the East as well, we see the notion of the Fall extended. The world isn’t just fallen. It becomes entirely illusory, maya. And in Buddhism, where eating meat or destroying even insects is forbidden, the Vegetable Kingdom still remains our prey.

For me the discussion is still open. And in my context the world, as such, seems innocent. And the weight of original sin seems to rest squarely on humanity alone.

(Image: Edward Hicks (1780-1849), “Peacable Kingdom” (link).)