Jesus of Nazareth - Buddha (The Victors) - Parsifal - continued
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A Study by Karl Heckel (Bayreuther Blätter, 1896, pp. 5-19) |
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[An English translation of Wagner's sketch and notes for this projected drama can be found in volume 8 of Ellis' Prose Works, pages 283-340. It is
worth keeping in mind when reading what follows here, that Heckel is discussing the characters and events of Wagner's projected drama, rather that those found
in his source material, the New Testament.]
 n order to understand the character of Kundry, it might be useful to examine the
character of Mary Magdalen as she appears in the draft for Jesus of Nazareth. According to the memoirs of Frau Eliza Wille1, in whose house in Mariafeld the artist stayed for some time, he had considered showing in his drama Mary Magdalen filled with sinful love
for Jesus. In the 1848 draft recently published, however, this does not appear. The plan of the first act shows Mary Magdalen identified with the woman taken
in adultery (John chapter 8). 
n the second act we see the sale of possessions and their proceeds handed over to Judas Iscariot, treasurer of
the community of Jesus. This act begins beside the lake Genessaret at daybreak. We find Jesus asleep under a tree. Mary Magdalen is kneeling at his feet and
kissing the hem of his garb, while she expresses her deep devotion and love for her Redeemer. As Mary, the Mother, enters, ary Magdalen begs Mary [the mother]
to use her influence on her son in the Mary Magdalen's favour, because she desires to be allowed to serve as his humblest servant. Mary comforts and dismisses
her. Towards the end of the act we meet them both again, this time distributing bread and wine to the crowds.
 fter Mary Magdalen (in act three) has observed and overheard Judas conversing with the Pharisees from Tiberias,
she (in act four) approaches Jesus at the supper table with the question, sir, is it your will, what Judas does? Jesus dismisses her calmly with a
gesture of his hand. She goes aside and cries violently. Later she takes a precious phial from her bosom, approaches Jesus again, pours it on his head, then
washes his feet, dries and anoints them while sighing and weeping. Judas addresses the question to him: why did he not sell the ointment and give the proceeds
to the poor? (John chapter 12). Jesus however reprimands him, thanks Mary Magdalen and dismisses her. After supper she returns to the empty room, lamenting her
misery. She has understood Jesus and his intention: she counts herself blessed to have served him. When Judas enters with the soldiers, she denies knowing
where Jesus and the disciples have gone. After a short exchange with Judas she is taken away so that she cannot warn Jesus. She escapes, however, and at once
makes a last attempt to save Jesus. In the scene of Jesus before Pilate under interrogation, it says in the draft:
 Pilate receives a message from his wife, telling him that he is not to condemn Jesus, a woman
(Mary Magdalen can bring the message herself. - Jesus reproach at Mary Magdalen: she asks for pardon) has fled to her and by her statements convinced her
that this Jesus is a righteous man. - With Mary the mother and John she follows him to the place of judgement and comes back with them and with the message,
it is completed . 
n the draft of Jesus of Nazareth, Wagner allows Mary Magdalen to understand the significance of Jesus'
death before the disciples do so. After her question: sir, is it your will, what Judas does? , at which she is dismissed with a calm gesture of the hand,
Mary is no longer in any doubt that he has chosen a sacrificial death, hence her intercession with Pilate's wife, seeking a pardon for Jesus. What Peter first
recognizes and makes Judas understand around the hour of the execution is that the sacrificial death of Jesus is his transfiguration, not the miracles which
Judas had expected of him. It was not to Mary Magdalen, who understood him without words, but to the other disciples that Jesus had addressed the words of
explanation concerning his death; so when he speaks the words in the third act in the temple: and openly and before all eyes I will suffer death for the
sake of love, by which I redeem the world to eternal life.
 he alternative titles offered to the Buddha, world conqueror or world overcomer remind us of
the alternatives offered to Jesus, according to Wagner's notes on the draft: David's inheritance or God's son. We cannot for a moment
overlook the importance of such a choice, which proved to be a more important one for Jesus than for the teacher of Indian wisdom.
The first believers [were] poor shepherds and peasants, used to the Jewish law, to whom it seemed
imperative to establish the descent of Jesus from the royal lineage of David. [Religion and Art]
his fact could not have escaped the attention of the poet. As a direct descendant of the oldest lineage, Jesus
could have claimed to be the ruler of the world, even if it were worthless despotism. But he renounced his Davidic inheritance. He knew that he could not free
mankind -- his brothers -- from their misery through authority of earthly monarchy but only by the fulfilment of his divine mission. The people and the
aristocracy, however, expected that he would lead the Jewish people to world domination. Therefore it frightens the people and strengthens the authority of the
Pharisees, when Jesus (in the third act) announces from the temple stairs his nature as God's son, his mission and that through it all peoples, not the Jewish
people alone, will be redeemed. Then he discovers that the people do not understand his teaching. He will do everything in his power to ensure that at least
his disciples understand. This can be achieved only through his sacrificial death. 
he picture of Jesus of Nazareth presented above can only become clear to us if we keep in mind that Wagner has
left for us the draft for a drama. As with all of Wagner's dramatic works, in this drama we must investigate his methods, if we want to discover his
intentions. Then we will not misjudge the similarities and differences between the historical figure of Jesus of Nazareth as he appears in this draft, and that
cleansed and redeemed of all alexandrine, Judaic, roman and despotic disfiguration, sublime Redeemer without parallel , later described by the poet of
Parsifal.
he crucial importance of Schopenhauer's philosophy for Wagner's world-view, informed
his later study of the Saviour, an investigation which increasingly appears to us "Bayreuthians" as the noblest task one might set oneself. If we find the
opinion and the theory of the first [Christian] believers - that Jesus issued from the royal house of David - uncritically accepted in the draft discussed above,
then we can set against it the later opinion that: Jesus was not of Jewish descent, since the inhabitants of Galilee were on account of their mixed origins
despised by the Jews [see Matthew 4:15]. But gladly we may conclude, as advised by our Master, that everything concerning the historical facts about Jesus
can be left for the historian to determine, while we prefer to contemplate the image of the Redeemer2.
A sinless divine nature took upon itself the tremendous sins of all existence and expiated them with his own painful death. By this expiatory death itself,
everything which breathes and lives should be allowed to know it is redeemed. Thus he is to be understood as an example and as a model worthy of imitation.
These words of Wagner's, which we recall here in order to understand core ethical contents of the draft for Jesus of Nazareth, show us at the same time
the basic tendency out of which the stage-dedicatory festival-drama [i.e. Parsifal] grew, so that they seem worthy of consideration in that context
too.
[An English translation of Wagner's sketch for this projected drama can be found in volume 8 of Ellis' translation of the Prose
Works, pages 385-6. Heckel does not appear to have been familiar with the additional material concerning this Buddhist
drama which became available in 1904 with the publication of Prof. Wolfgang Golther's edition of Wagner's letters to Mathilde Wesendonk.]
f we consider, however, that Schopenhauer's and Wagner's respective paths to the
acquisition of a purified world-view were guided by Brahminism and Buddhism, then it might seem advisable also to consider the influence of Indian wisdom on the
stage-dedicatory festival-drama [i.e. Parsifal]. Later we will consider whether the direct source of the poetic conception of Klingsor's magic garden
might be found in Indian legends. Before proceeding with that investigation, I wish to consider the sketch of The Victors [Die
Sieger], in particular concerning the subject of Buddhism. This sketch is printed in the Drafts, Thoughts and Fragments
compiled from papers left unpublished by Wagner. It was committed to paper on 16 May 1856 in Zurich. I am grateful for the information kindly provided by
a noble friend of the artist3 (who reported to us in her Memoirs of an Idealist about Wagner's
suffering in Paris), that Wagner took the material of The Victors from a story in Burnouf's Introduction
to the History of Indian Buddhism. She writes: For Wagner, as for any poet, inspiration could be found in concrete material. Transformed by his great
genius, this brief narrative about the Buddha assumed great philosophical and poetic proportions.
he persons of the drama given by the sketch are: Shakyamuni, Ananda, Prakriti, her mother, Brahmins, disciples, people. It is widely known that Buddha is a
generic name meaning: the one awakened to awareness , or the enlightened one . This title is mainly used when referring to the above-mentioned
Shakyamuni, of the lineage of Shakya. He was the founder of a new religion that grew out of Brahminism. In this story, Ananda is
his first disciple and his constant companion on his journeys through the country.
ccording to the teachings which prevailed in India before the time of the Buddha, the path of redemption could
only be found by the Brahmins. So the only hope for those born into other castes was that, as the reward for good works, they might be reborn as Brahmins. Far
beneath all other castes were the Pariahs and Chandalas, with whom the Brahmins were allowed no contact. Shakyamuni appeared as the liberator of these outcasts
for whom the Brahmins had neither mercy nor compassion.
ccording to Wagner his drama is set at the time of the last journey of the Buddha [before his final
enlightenment]. Wagner wanted to show the Chandala maiden Prakriti full of [sexual] love for Ananda and in her spiritual struggle with the pangs of love. Ananda, however, responds to her advances with
weeping and runs away from her. A comparison with the scene between Parsifal and Kundry in the
second act of the stage-dedication festival-play is unavoidable - also where dramatic structure is concerned - when we read in the sketch:
Prakriti goes to Buddha, under the tree at the city's gate, to
plead for her union with Ananda. He asks if she is willing to fulfil the conditions of such a union? Dialogue with twofold
meaning, interpreted by Prakriti in the sense of her passion; she sinks horrified and sobbing to the ground, when she hears at
length that she must share Ananda's vow of chastity.
n the further course of the drama, the Buddha responds to the reproaches of the Brahmins concerning his contact
with a Chandala maiden and he attacks the idea of caste. The Buddha goes on to reveal Prakriti's existence in an earlier birth,
in a dramatically pivotal narration. It is because, when she was the daughter of a Brahmin, she had proudly rejected the son of a Chandala king, he relates, and
because she had mocked the unfortunate young man, that she has been reborn as a Chandala maiden. In her present life it is intended that she would herself
experience the agonies of hopeless love. Her redemption can be found in renunciation and full acceptance in the Buddha's community.
ndian legends tell of many conversions made by the Buddha, in which the unfortunate one was told how all their
suffering is only the necessary consequence of and penalty for sins committed in their previous lives, and how their atonement for these sins leads them on the
path of redemption. In the sketch by Wagner discussed here, after the Buddha's narration, Prakriti
announces herself ready to make the vow demanded by him, by answering his question with a joyful yes. She is then welcomed by Ananda as a sister. The Buddha then announces his last teachings, and now that everything has become clear to him, goes on his way to the
place of his final and complete enlightenment.
f we compare Wagner's sketch with the more extensive account of the legend in Burnouf's
book (pages 183-187 of the second edition [or pages 205-209 of the first edition]), then we find almost complete agreement, which is not surprising, given the
flow of the narrative. In the legend that equivocal discussion under the tree by the city gates is already of substantial importance. According to Burnouf:
The Buddha uses Ananda's motivation and the excited state of Prakriti's mind as means to the end of their conversion, by successively addressing to her deliberate but ambiguous questions, which
she interprets in terms of her passion, after which he interprets her answers in a religious sense. In this way she is gradually led to a realization of her
own nature and to hope of finding peace in ascetic life. Then he asks whether she is ready to follow Ananda, i.e. to follow his
example, and whether she wishes to wear his clothes, i.e. whether she wants to put on religious clothing, etc.4
 urnouf lets the original legend speak only rarely, mostly retelling it in his own words and compressed. A
substantial change that appears in Wagner's sketch concerns the Buddha's revelation of Prakriti's
experiences in a previous life. According to the legend, which is clearly intended to proselytize, in her former life it was not Prakriti who rejected the suit of the Chandala king but her father, a haughty Brahmin, who did so without her knowledge. Since the
Buddhist religion does not know of any visiting of the sins of the father upon the children, there is no sin of Prakriti in the
legend, such as becomes clearly visible in Wagner's sketch. This reworking by the dramatist is carried out completely in the spirit of
the Buddhist myth. Indeed, I am inclined to say that this Indian legend communicated by Burnouf was one that had been adapted to the end of proselytizing and
that Wagner, by transforming it poetically, has in all probability recovered its original form. The primary purpose of the legend, in the version retold by
Burnouf, is the condemnation of the hypocrisy of the Brahmins, and for this purpose the conversation between Prakriti's father
and the Chandala king is more appropriate than the psychologically important conversation between the king and Prakriti.
hus the reworking of the legend by Wagner touched upon elements that appear significant when we compare the
sketch and his stage-dedicatory festival-play. The sin for which Prakriti must atone, like that of
Kundry, was essentially one of contempt for the suffering of others. In both cases, desire and
longing are revealed as obstacles to redemption, which Ananda and Parsifal successfully overcome
by their resistance, and in both cases we are shown how their great compassion reveals the path. That which in the sketch only appears
within the limitations of historical context, would be revealed in the stage-dedicatory festival-play as the purely-human, freed from all convention . Here
not only was the fate of individual protagonists widened in its significance to embrace everyone, but also the truth of eternal justice [Wahrheit ewiger Gerechtigkeit], which had been partly revealed in the historical-religious clothing of Buddhism, presented itself in the
work of art, unconcealed and luminous, to the receptive.
he theory of metempsychosis, which is common to all Indian religions,
states that all the suffering one has caused to a living being, one will oneself have to suffer in future lives, even if one has atoned in this
world5. The inner core of a living being, its karma, is not destroyed on the death of an
individual, but survives and at once seeks another dwelling place. The nature of this new incarnation is determined by the condition of the personal record
associated with this inner core, in terms of good and bad actions in previous lives. According to whether their karma is of
good or bad quality, thus is determined the fate of man, so that one falls low, another is raised up, one is wretched, another is fortunate (words of the
Buddha).
t might be the task of the philosophy of the future, itself inclining towards Buddhism's esoteric theory of
palingenesis - as Schopenhauer's genius recognized - to climb from the deepest valleys of physical research up to the furthest
heights of metaphysical realization and to combine modern scientific theories with the wise doctrine of karma. We are permitted
to perceive in the picture created by the word-tone poet that which a philosophical system will probably never be able perfectly to teach us, and which religious
allegory only could communicate symbolically. So we can be satisfied with Wagner's utterance:
Where religion becomes artificial, it is reserved for art to save the core of religion by
recognizing the figurative value of the mythic symbols which the former would have us believe in a literal sense, and by revealing the deep truth hidden in
them through ideal representation.
he often repeated designation of Kundry as female Ahasuerus actually
explains very little. Because the legend of the Wandering Jew tells us only that death is something similar to sleep, without thereby
suggesting any deeper truth. The phenomenon does not change. It is only for the Flying Dutchman that this comparison is meaningful, not for Kundry. The truth (recognized by the Buddha), that only the phenomenon is destroyed by death -- while our true nature, so long as if
affirms life, must seek a new incarnation to arrive at a new phenomenon -- is made visible in Kundry. The philosopher [i.e.
Schopenhauer] tried to explain to us this persistence of our true nature through changing of the phenomenon, by the following
analogy: as our sleep is between yesterday and today, so is our death between previous and present incarnations. The artist avails himself of this analogy, when
Kundry complains:
If you knew the curse,
which compels me asleep, awake,
through death and back to life,
in pain and laughter,
in ever new forms to suffer anew,
tortured by unending existence!
 arlier, when she was woken by Klingsor's necromancy, we heard the words sleep and death juxtaposed. Her sounds
are hoarse and broken, as if trying to regain the power of speech , and she brokenly manages to utter these words: Darkest night! Madness! O rage! O
misery! Sleep ... sleep ... Deep sleep! Death! To Klingsor's: There another woke you? Eh? , she answers: Yes! My curse! Oh! Longing - longing!
The object of her longing is revealed to us by the motif of the Saviour's Lament sounding in the orchestra, accompanying Klingsor's words, confirming her sinful
desire for the knights of the Grail.
 ith these words [in act one] Kundry expresses her fear of
the death- like sleep , of Klingsor, or - more deeply understood - of the curse that condemns her to be tortured by unending existence . Rest!
Rest! oh, my weariness! - It is not death-like sleep that she seeks , i.e. the death of the phenomenon, the death of the
individual in which the will is not destroyed, but rather eternal sleep , i.e. her final release from dying and living, death and rebirth. Therefore she complains [in act two]:
O eternal sleep,
my only salvation,
how, how can I win you?
 lingsor's words: Your master calls you, nameless one , immediately suggest that he is referring to her
transcendental being, a nature characterised by the names that follow: Primeval devil-woman! Rose of Hell! Although she is one being, she has appeared in
different forms, as distinct phenomena. Klingsor cannot name them all but he continues:
You were Herodias, and who else?
Gundryggia there, Kundry here!
 ans von Wolzogen and after him Löffler have explained the meaning and thus the choice of these names according to
their respective investigations. The original Herodias legend was summarised by Löffler, as follows,: Herodias burned with
love for John the Baptist, a love which he did not return; when she covers the head carried on the plate with her tears and kisses, it resists her and begins
violently to blow: the ungodly one is blown into the air where she floats without support; so now, from midnight to cockcrow, she sits sighing in oaks and
hazels . Wagner converted the offense against the prophet [John the Baptist] into an offense against the Saviour, although he keeps the name Herodias. Her offense against the Saviour, recalled for us by Kundry:
I saw Him - Him -
and ... laughed!
Then I met His gaze!
would have been the first occasion and actual cause of her endless agony, as in the sketch for The Victors the causative
action was Prakriti's sin in scorning her suitor. Löffler says: the names change: Herodias, Gundryggia, Kundry; the substance remains the same .
I should like to put it a little differently: the features (thus also the substance) change: e.g. Herodias, Gundryggia, Kundry: the nature remains the same . In my attempt to interpret this case [of Kundry] the following lines have been found especially helpful:
Gurnemanz: Yes, one under a curse she might be.
Here she lives today - perhaps reborn,
to expiate sin committed in an earlier life.
e have to understand Kundry's "laughter" not only as
laughter at and mockery of the appearance of the Redeemer but also and indeed primarily as an expression of desire. Ever
thirsting for the fount of perdition 6, her being repeatedly finds new embodiment. Despite sleep and waking , death
and life , the nameless one, the primeval she-devil, rose of hell, sins again in accordance with the nature of her being.
The composed wonder is the highest and most necessary product of artistic and representational skill (Wagner, Opera and Drama, G.S. IV 101).
Such a composed wonder - which however by no means is to be seen as a miracle but rather as an intelligible representation of reality - is employed by
Wagner, when he lets the memories of earlier existences persist, disregarding the possibility that these memories might be erased by each successive death. Thus
as Kundry recalls the sins she has committed in an earlier life, so Klingsor can recall Kundry's
names in some of her earlier incarnations, just as the Buddha in his narration was able to describe Prakriti in a previous
existence.
lso the communication of the ideality of time and space should not be ignored. It is recognisably represented
both in the first and third acts of Parsifal. This composed wonder presents us with the Grail domain as the domain of perfect ideality7. Of course it is only with the greatest caution that one should attempt to explain a work of art in terms of abstract concepts, since, as has
been pointed out again and again, the contents of a true work of art cannot reveal any abstract concept but can only suggest, because the artwork is able to
represent directly that which, in terms of abstract concepts, cannot be proven. Anyone who ignores this, might find it difficult to defend themselves against the
charge of presumptuous superficiality, no less than that of reducing religious allegories to plain rationalism.
 oncerning the theory of palingenesis8 I should like to point out that it would be
insufficient to consider only those of Parsifal's sins for which he could atone by his reaction to the sight of Amfortas in pain, while we are compelled deeply to reflect on these words of Parsifal:
Ah! What sins, what offending guilt
must this fool's head
bear from all eternity;
then no penance, no atonement,
can excuse my blindness ...
he words that follow a little later, addressed by Gurnemanz to Parsifal, while he sprinkles Parsifal's head with water from the holy spring,
Be blessed, you pure one, through purity!
Thus may every trace of guilt
and worry leave you!
appear as an answer to that painful outburst of the intended Grail king. Only now is Parsifal absolved and healed. In this
respect he does not resemble Jesus of Nazareth, who did not have to wander the paths of error and suffering . Wagner said: since the Saviour was without
sin, incapable of sinfulness, we recognize that in him the will had been completely broken already before his birth . These words apply only to Jesus and not
to the sinner Parsifal. Although Parsifal differs in this case, he resembles another,
Shakyamuni, who also became wise through compassion and thus became the Buddha.
ccording to Buddhist legend, Shakyamuni was born a son of the king Sudhodana and received the name Siddhartta;
but he is more often referred to, in accordance with his descent, as Shakyamuni or Gautama. Wise Brahmins, who were consulted by Sudhodana, predicted that the
prince would become a most powerful king, provided he did not become a hermit. When the king asked how the latter was to be prevented, they answered that the
prince must not be allowed to see any of these four things: no man weakened by old age, no sick person, no dead body and no hermit. Despite all precautions taken
by his father, however, one day the prince happened to see a man bent by old age: at which he grieved over the transience of human strength and beauty. He saw a
sick man, at which he was seized by deep compassion. He saw a dead body, at which he was seized by deep grief, and with it lost all desire for life. Finally,
when he saw the peace and blessedness of a hermit, he renounced all splendour and wealth, in order to experience all kinds of suffering and testing, in pursuit
of a single goal: to become Buddha and thus redeemer of all beings who are subjected to desire and pain, birth and death. The final tests which Shakyamuni
overcame, in his awareness of visible and recognized misery, remind us of Parsifal's resistance [to the temptations of
Klingsor's magic garden], which was made possible by the power of his compassion.
 or the purposes of this article, we will give particular attention to the temptations and struggles, by which
Mára (who can be compared to Klingsor) attempts to overcome the Bodhisat. Bodhisat meant, one striving after the Buddhahood 9 and therefore it is used to designate the Buddha before the time of his "perfection". While he sat under the holy Bodhi-tree, Mára wanted to
strike him in the back but the radiant beauty of the Bodhisat dazzled Mára's eyes and so restrained his movements. He tried now to destroy his enemy with the
help of natural forces. He conjured up an enormously furious storm, by which even the strongest trees were uprooted and great rocks were torn out of the ground;
but in the vicinity of the Bodhisat, the storm turned into a refreshing breeze, which hardly stirred the leaves of the holy tree, beneath which the Bodhisat
remained in undisturbed peace and became as clear as the midday sun. 
hen Mára provoked a terrible thunderstorm but neither lightning accompanied by roaring thunder nor floods could
harm the Bodhisat. He was merely refreshed as if by a light shower and his happy smile was like the silver light of the full moon in a cloudless sky. Mára seized
stones and rocks which he cast at the Bodhi-tree, in an attempt to smash to pieces the one who was seeking the Buddhahood. He flung sharp swords and pointed
arrows so that they rained down around the Bodhisat; but all of them were transformed into buds and blossoms, or into garlands of flowers, which fell like
friendly floral tributes at his feet. The face of the Bodhisat now resembled a golden mirror, in which was reflected his deep composure; it shone as clearly as
the flower petals of a water-lily. Mára wanted to destroy him by fire; but the burning coals, which should have burned him, were transformed in the proximity of
the Bodhi-tree into precious ruby stones; the glowing ashes became fragrant sandalwood powder; the white-hot sand became pearls; the smoke, which should have
surrounded him in darkness and choked him, was dispersed by his shining appearance like morning mist by the rising sun.
 ára now ordered his entire army against the Bodhisat. He mounted his elephant,
brandished his mighty discus which, as he came near to the prince, Mára threw at him with all his force. This weapon was so powerful that it could have split a
mighty mountain in twain; despite this, Mára was not able to wound the prince who sought to bring redemption. Through his great merit the weapon flew slowly,
like a dry leaf, through the air and stopped, remaining suspended over the head of the Bodhisat; who reached his hand down to the earth, to the accompaniment of
a loud thunderclap and as sheets of fire shot up out of the earth. Mára's army fled; he was himself thrown to the ground and forced to recognise the greater
power of the Bodhisat. 
ára's daughters, who were called Desire, Disorder and Lust10, now made a last attempt. They transformed themselves into the forms of six hundred wonderfully beautiful maidens of various ages and dressed
seductively. The maidens approached the prince, praising his beauty, flattering him and teasing him with all kinds of questions. But the Bodhisat was not
distracted by them and, after they had persevered with their arts of seduction for a long time, they left him alone.11
here is not necessarily any specific reference here, in which the weapon thrown by Mára can be identified with
the holy spear, or his daughters with the girls in Klingsor's magic garden12. On the other hand it might benefit a wider view to
compare the absolution of Kundry by Parsifal with those legends, which tell of how the Buddha
admitted to his community both Prajapati, the faithful nurse of his childhood, and Yasodhara, formerly his wife13, giving as his
reason: Should the teachers of mankind come into the world only for the redemption of men? I say to you, the highest wisdom can be as easily revealed to the
woman as to the man. Both can enter into Nirvana. Richard Wagner's essay On the Womanly in the Human14, on which he
was working when death took him from us, refers to the Buddha's initial exclusion of women from the possibility of true holiness, and the remaining fragment
closes with the words: It is a beautiful feature of the legend, that shows the Victoriously Perfect [a title of the Buddha] at last determined to admit the
woman .
declared the purpose of this study to be an examination of specific factors, which might help to guide us
towards an appreciation of the sum of the metaphysical, or more properly emotional, contents of Wagner's dramas. We see now the possibility of the performance of
all of these dramas, a process that already began in 1886 in Bayreuth, so that in 1891 there could be performed the three works Tannhäuser,
Tristan and Parsifal, which between them encompass the high points of the metaphysical-religious world-view of the artist.
 o we must continue to investigate the common contents of the dramas. We conclude our study with words of the
Master, which offer to us the possibility of answering every one of our questions. He says: That which, as simplest and most touching of religious symbols,
unites us in the common practice of our faith and which, revealed anew in the tragic teachings of great spirits, uplifts us to the heights of compassion, is the knowledge, given in manifold forms, of the need for redemption. . If we want to understand
the the shared and collective significance of Wagner's dramas, we have to put this idea in the center and imagine around it the ideality of those dramas as
forming concentric circles. 
e recognize these ideas both in the dramas of Wagner's first period, in which they are
expressed with unconscious necessity, and in the later works, in which conscious artistic effort reveals them to us. These ideas speak to us in the lament of the
Flying Dutchman, then they grow silent and speak to us again in other forms, other words, other tones, probably at the most extreme in the spiritual
struggle of Tannhäuser, or in the death-seeking delirium of Tristan. They arrive in their final and most satisfactory form in the
stage-dedicatory festival-play, with the soft, hardly audible words: redemption to the Redeemer! Softly sounding and hardly audible, they can be
heard in Bayreuth by those who will listen, although not outside where they are drowned by the noise of the world. There, not here, that one, not this, becomes
the truth, which Wagner so intimately felt and so touchingly expressed:
We already feel that we partake of this redemption in solemn hours when all the world's appearances
dissolve away, as in a prophetic dream. Then no more do we fear the appearance of that yawning abyss, the gruesome monsters of the deep, the craving
monstrosities of the self-devouring will, which the day - alas! the history of mankind, had forced upon us. Then we are able to hear the lament of nature, pure
and yearning for peace, ring out: fearless, hopeful, all-assuaging, world-redeeming. Hearing this lament, the soul of all mankind is purified and made
conscious of its own high calling, to redeem like-suffering nature. It now soars above the abyss of semblances, and, released from all that awful chain of
becoming and passing away, the restless will, fettered by itself alone, finds its freedom.
Footnote 1: Frau Eliza Wille recalled, from 1852, Wagner's words concerning the prophet from Nazareth in her Erinnerungen an Richard
Wagner (Atlantis Verlag, Zürich, 1982, page 34). [Translator's note]
Footnote 2: The blood of the Saviour, the issue from his head, his wounds upon the cross; who impiously would ask its race, if white or other?
Divine we call it and its source might dimly be approached in what we termed the uniting bond of the human species: its aptitude for conscious suffering.
(Herodom and Christendom) [Author's note]. This comment appears in the context of Wagner's critique of Gobineau, who had
introduced the term white race. Wagner by contrast acknowledged only one race, the human species, which was distinguished from the animals by its
aptitude for conscious suffering , which Wagner identified with the blood of Christ. [Translator's note]
Footnote 3: Malwida von Meysenbug. [Translator's note]
Footnote 4: Heckel has slightly compressed Burnouf's original, in which this passage reads as follows: Çâkyamuni se présente en effet, et il
apprend de la bouche de la jeune fille l'amour qu'elle ressent pour Ânanda et la détermination où elle est de le suivre. Profitant de cette passion pour
convertir Prakriti, le Buddha, par une suite de questions que Prakriti peut prendre dans le sens de son amour, mais qu'il fait sciemment dans un sens tout
religieux, finit par ouvrir à la lumière les yeux de la jeune fille et par lui inspirer le désir d'embrasser la vie ascétique. C'est ainsi qu'il lui demande si
elle consent à suivre Ânanda, c'est à-dire à l'imiter dans ca conduite; si elle veut porter les mêmes vêtements que lui, c'est-à-dire le vêtements des personnes
religieuses; si elle est autorisée par ses parents: questions que la loi de la Discipline exige qu'on adresse à ceux qui veulent se faire mendiants
buddhistes. [Translator's note]
Footnote 5: This is an odd statement in view of the author's later reference to the Buddhist teaching of palingenesis. Since, according to a
central doctrine attributed to the historical Buddha, there is no soul or ātman, in contrast to the
teachings of other religions such as Brahminism, it would be difficult for Buddhists to believe in the transmigration of souls or metempsychosis. Schopenhauer had difficulty in distinguishing these doctrines and, at least as late as 1855, so too did
Richard Wagner, who referred to metempsychosis as a beautiful Buddhist doctrine . It might also be noted here that a Buddhist might have spoken of Prakriti's negative karma, akusala, rather than of her sin. [Translator's note]
Footnote 6: O benighted madness of the world: that while feverishly seeking salvation - still thirsts for the fount of perdition! [Lines
from act 2 of Parsifal, author's note]
Footnote 7: Also in Wolfram's Parzival is a location described as a domain of perfect ideality, the Grail mountain Monsalvat. The relevant lines read:
Munsalvæsche ist niht gewent
daz iemen ir sô nâhe rite,
ezn wær der angestlîche
strite,
ode der alsolhen wandel bôt
als man vor dem walde heizet
tôt.
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Monsalväsch ist nicht gewöhnt
dass ihm wer so nahe ritt,
es sei denn, dass er siegreich
stritt,
Oder solche süsse bot,
die sie vor dem Walde heissen
Tod.
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Monsalvat is not accustomed
to anyone who rides so near,
without fighting a desperate
battle,
or offering such sweet amends,
as those beyond the forest call
death.
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The last of these lines should remind the reader of my preceding analysis. [Author's note]
Footnote 8: See: Karl Heckel, Die Idee der Wiedergeburt (dissertation), Leipzig, Max Spohr. [Author's note]
Footnote 9: Bodhisat is a Pali term for which the Sanskrit equivalent is Bodhisattva. Although these terms do mean one
striving after the Buddhahood , their literal meaning is closer to one whose body is bodhi , where bodhi, meaning enlightenment or awareness,
is the goal of the one who strives after the Buddhahood. [Translator's note]
Footnote 10: In Heckel's source, the Manual of Buddhism, the daughters are named as Tanhá (craving), Ranga (disorder) and Rati (lust or
attachment). In this Pali tradition the last-named is displaced by Arati (aversion, discontent or unrest), e.g. in the Sutta Nipáta. In Sanskrit sources they appear as Rati, Arati and Trsná (craving, desire or thirst). [Translator's
note]
Footnote 11: After Spence Hardy, A Manual of Buddhism, a most valuable work for the study of Buddhism, a German translation of which was
advocated by Schopenhauer. [Author's note]. In the original source, Spence Hardy's book, this account of the struggle between the
deva Mára and the future Buddha is described in greater detail on pages 171 to 179. Spence Hardy, who almost certainly found this version of the legend
in Ceylon, noted that the Hungarian scholar Csoma Körösi had described Mára as the god of pleasures , although he might also be described as the lord of
illusion . Carl Suneson reports a similar version of the legend in the anonymous text Apadanatthakatha, which contains
these lines: The wrathful Mára, unable to contain his surge of anger, hurled his discus towards the future Buddha. This weapon remained standing like a canopy
of flowers above the one who was absorbed in meditation on the different perfections. Similar statements are found in other Buddhist texts. [Translator's
note]
Footnote 12: It is likely that this Buddhist legend and the tale of the Indian flowermaidens related in the
Roman d'Alexandre (translated by Pfaffen Lamprecht as Alexanderlied, see Bayreuther Blätter, 1886, pages 47 ff., Hans von Wolzogen,
Tristan and Parsifal) originated in the same ancient Indian source. [Author's note; his suggestion is speculative.]
Footnote 13: This appears to be an alternative legend about the admission of women to the Buddha's community. In the legend which Wagner took as
the basis for The Victors it was Prakriti who was the first woman to be admitted to the community, i.e. she became the
first Buddhist nun. It is generally accepted, as Wagner noted, that it was his disciple Ananda who
persuaded the Buddha to admit women to the community. [Translator's note]
Footnote 14: An English translation appears in volume 8 of the Prose Works, pages 396-8. [Translator's note]
The translator is grateful to Laon for providing him with a copy of the article in the original German.
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