The One and the Many in Iranian Creation Myths: Rethinking “Nostalgia for Paradise”

Abstract

If I may indulge in a moment of reminiscence – a personal creation account of sorts – I first discovered the study of myth in the 1960 s, when T.S. Eliot’s “The Wasteland” (required reading for undergraduates of the era) led me to Frazer’s Golden Bough and attempts to locate contemporary studies of a similar sort led me to Eliade’s Cosmos and History (aka The Myth of the Eternal Return). All three works fascinated me, but the first and last had the deepest effects, for they shared a vision I found attractive as an alienated and callow adolescent. Eliot’s searing verses, accompanied by his learned, if quirky, footnotes identified modernity’s woes not as political, social, or economic (as conventional wisdom had it), but as cultural and religious in nature. More precisely, he lamented the West’s loss of myth, the genre that provided meaning and inspiration to our forebears, while uniting them around a set of orienting traditions and shared beliefs. I am embarassed to say I found this argument bracingly novel, not knowing enough to recognize the strong imprint of Charles Maurras and other reactionaries who had long championed unity under King, Church, and sacred truth against secularism, liberalism, and other forces of disintegration they associated with the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. Eliade shared a