
The Magician of Manga - lermontov
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/11/25/hokusai-magician-of-manga/
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yarou
What's always fascinated me about manga is the progression of space, rather
than time.

~~~
wodenokoto
Can you explain that further?

~~~
yarou
Allow me to gather my thoughts for a moment.

In the West, we are obsessed with the arrow of time. Storytelling in the West
is typically concerned with getting characters from point A to point B. The
space of the story is of secondary importance to the one way flow of time. The
here and now is of central importance.

This is not the case in Eastern cultures. Japanese culture has been heavily
influenced by Vedic religions, as well Shintoism and Taoism.

A central concept of Vedic religions is Samsara[1], which can be thought of as
a cyclical view of the universe. Time itself is merely an illusion, because
ultimately the same cycle of birth, sustainence, and death is repeated
infinitely.

That's why space is the focal point in manga. As another commenter stated,
certain events are happening in the present. But the next scene may have non-
linearly taken place in the future, or perhaps in the past, or even with no
reference to the current time period. What ties everything together is the
common space.

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saṃsāra](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saṃsāra)

~~~
WilliamDhalgren
afaik there was never any influence of hinduism on Japan at all - barely a
contact with it before late 19.century and modern ways of migration.

And it would be the height of irony to call buddhism a vedic religion, as it
along with other sramana movements (such as jainism or ajivika) of the time
precisely rejected the vedas.

~~~
RCortex
> buddhism...precisely rejected the vedas

It's a lot more complicated than that...

~~~
WilliamDhalgren
heh most things are, but I cannot see what complication you may have in mind
relevant here.

Vedas don't have any authority in buddhism, just like in other shramana
religions, and seem their claim to traditional authority is directly
criticized in actual buddhist scripture - literally that this tradition is
blind men leading the blind (itself possibly an Upanishadic reference). No
doubt there's a decent amount of complication in the matter of various lines
of theological influences going between the religions as one would expect, but
how is that any justification for calling buddhism a vedic religion? Hindu
authors have commonly identified precisely Buddhism, Jainism, Ajivika and the
Charvakas, in other words the shramana traditions as being nastika on exactly
the basis of their rejection of vedic authority. Now if you'd call it Dharmic
religions, sure that works - though is a bit of a strange euphemism in case of
Japan where clearly one can only be talking about Buddhism, so why define it
in any plurality like "dharmic religions"?

[http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.095x.than.html](http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.095x.than.html)

" Suppose there were a row of blind men, each holding on to the one in front
of him: the first one doesn't see, the middle one doesn't see, the last one
doesn't see. In the same way, the statement of the brahmans turns out to be a
row of blind men, as it were: the first one doesn't see, the middle one
doesn't see, the last one doesn't see. So what do you think, Bharadvaja: this
being the case, doesn't the conviction of the brahmans turn out to be
groundless?"

