Number 22 July 2000
Mysticism in E.M. Forester's A Passage to India
Did Mrs. Moore Experience a Hindu Insight
in the Marabar Caves
Alexandra Clark
The figure of Mrs. Moore, and the problem of what happened to her in the extraordinary Marabar Caves, has fascinated critics for decades. The question has absorbed attention to a degree that does not correspond to the secondary role that Mrs. Moore plays in the plot of A Passage to India. On the surface, she is a supporting character, yet many of the unresolved issues of the novel seem to be concentrated in her experience. Mrs. Moore arrives in India a sympathetic figure, and departs unresponsive and uncaring, transformed beyond recognition by the mysterious voice of the Marabar. The deliberately unexplained matter of what spoke to her in the cave has intrigued virtually every scholar who has written on this novel, each coming up with his or her own interpretation of the event. Some have claimed that an evil, ancient force dwelt in the caves, while others suggest that Mrs. Moore achieved a life-altering Hindu insight. There is indeed substantial indication that Mrs. Moore achieved the primary goal of certain branches of Hinduism, melding the Atman and Brahman (Self and not-Self) into one indivisible entity, and therefore recognizing the single, pervasive force that underlies everything. However, no transcendence seems to result from this recognition, as Mrs. Moore is destroyed rather than uplifted by her vision.
Although her experience deceptively contains elements of a Hindu insight, I believe that she ultimately encountered a perverted, sinister, and finally hollow version of Hinduism. The truly beautiful complexity of the philosophy/religion is reduced by the unrelenting echo of the cave. It becomes something devoid of depth and meaning, and particularly devoid of value, perhaps not unlike the way in which the English in the novel reduce the culture of India as a whole. The echo in the Marabar Caves distorts the complicated mystery of India until it is little more than a muddle.
Before discussing the character of Mrs. Moore and her experience in the Caves, it is first necessary to outline a few of the basic tenets of Hinduism. Hinduism is an elusive, complicated religion, with no identifiable founder and origins in the ancient scriptures of the Vedas. There are numerous Hindu religious texts, and even more distinct branches that can be identified within the larger framework of the religion. However, the shared goal of all Hindus is to attain liberation from the cycle of rebirth, which is referred to as samsara. The release from samsara is known as moksa, which is the only path to being in the eternal presence of God.1
The Vedic school of Hindu philosophy is derived from the Upanishads, texts that relate dialogues exploring spiritual and philosophic questions. The principal idea contained within the Upanishads is that the world is deceptively cloaked by maya ("illusion"). The true force that orders all things is known as Brahman, a formless and invisible entity that can also be called "not-Self" or the Holy Power. The counterpart to Brahman is atman, the soul or the "Self." The atman is inseparable from the Brahman, and the two are in fact identical, since a oneness connects everything, though outward forms may change.2 Those forms are unreal and temporary; only the formless Brahman-Atman can be considered real and permanent.
Vedic philosophers, since the inception of this mode of thought, have struggled to discover the nature of this unity that pervades everything. Since atman and Brahman are equivalent, the search to comprehend the Self encompasses a search for the secrets of the entire universe. To identify the unity that pervades all things by merging the atman and the Brahman is to escape samsara and to become a part of its pervasiveness, to achieve the immortality and bliss that accompanies a renunciation of that which is inconstant and changeable.3 To tap into that source which feeds the universe is to transcend the perishability of one's existence by becoming one with this eternal source.
The first glimpse we receive of Mrs. Moore is through the eyes of Aziz, when she materializes out of the shadows of the mosque. He is initially shocked, and hastily assumes the offensive, saying that no person is permitted to enter this religious place wearing shoes. She respectfully answers that she is aware of this custom, and had removed her footwear prior to entering the mosque. The initial impression that is created of Mrs. Moore is of a kindly woman who has taken care to acquaint herself with the traditions of the Indians and to respect these customs. Although a devout Christian, she clearly acknowledges the validity of Islam, and takes the religion and its social practices seriously. Her considerate demeanor stands out among the overwhelmingly rude and condescending treatment that English persons extend towards the Indians. It is immediately clear that Mrs. Moore possesses a connection to the people of India that is unique among her countrymen and women. Even Adela, though she expresses the desire to "know" India, never truly makes any meaningful contact.
Mrs. Moore's connection extends well beyond a friendly relationship with Aziz, and into the realm of the mystical. After hearing of Adela and Ronny's car accident, strangely and without any sort of provocation Mrs. Moore shivers and exclaims "A ghost!" (100). Only a few pages later, we listen to the inner thoughts of Nawab Bahadur, who was also present in the car at the time of the accident: "Nine years previously, when first he had had a car, he had driven it over a drunken man and killed him, and the man . . . continued to wait in an unspeakable form, close to the scene of his death. None of the English people knew of this, nor did the chauffeur; it was a racial secret communicable more by blood than speech" (102). Apparently, Mrs. Moore has intuitively understood this "racial secret ."
The most resonant reference to Hinduism in the first section of the novel ("Mosque") is Professor Godpole's haunting song. He tells of a young girl who implores Shri Krishna to appear: "I say to Him, Come, come, come, come, come, come. He neglects to come" (87). This powerful image of an absent God lingers well into the Caves section, which we are told "are older than all spirit"(125), and also evoke a sense of an absence of God so tangible that it implies his presence.4 The whereabouts of the God or Holy Power can only be described by contrasting it against where it is not: if this vacant space, this here, is devoid of God, He can be found in the surrounding material that encloses this space and allows its existence. The concept is not unlike that of a cave. In order to define what the space within a cave is, one must inescapably include in the definition the way in which it contrasts with the enclosing walls. The cave's absence is constructed by, and inseparable from, those walls. The space within a cave and its walls cannot be separated into two different entities since each depends upon the other to explain itself. A shell is defined by the space it rests around; the boundaries of a space are defined by the structure of the shell. Each shapes the other and makes it meaningful. Perhaps this concept of the indivisibility of a shell and the space within a shell is part of the principle by which the Self and not-Self are considered identical in Hinduism.
When referring to the Marabar Caves, the word "extraordinary" is used repeatedly, the frequency suggesting that every other word proves inadequate to explain them. The word "extraordinary" holds a double meaning; one is left to question whether it is meant that the caves are phenomenal (ie. exceeding the ordinary) or stunning in their plainness (extra-ordinary). After all, within the caves "the pattern never varies, and no carving, not even a bees' nest or a bat, distinguishes one from another" (126). There appear to be two ways to interpret virtually everything in this novel, from the word "extraordinary" to the phrase "everything exists, nothing has value," but when carefully considered, in many cases these two interpretations from a Hindu point of view have no meaningful difference. This point will magnify in importance after Mrs. Moore's experience, and should be kept in mind.
In the opening of the "Caves" section, describing the Marabar Hills, Forster tells us that "If flesh of the sun's flesh is to be touched anywhere, it is here, among the incredible antiquity of these hills" (125). In the Upanishads, Brahman is referred to as light, light being equated with the sun.5 Therefore, this passage could be interpreted as saying that the Marabar Hills are the place to attain Hindu enlightenment. Even if one chose not to view the passage as an indirect reference to Hinduism, it clearly emphasizes the power and cruel primitivism of this location, and marks the Hills as a place where drastic things could potentially occur.
On the path to the Caves, Adela glimpses what she thinks is a snake but turns out to be a stump when she views it through a pair of field-glasses: "Everything seemed cut off at its root, and therefore infected with illusion" (139). This is a typical illustration of the Hindu theory that maya (illusion) cloaks the reality of the world.
Mrs. Moore is terrified by the echo that assaults her in the first cave she enters, and chooses not to venture into a second:
The echo in a Marabar cave . . . is entirely devoid of distinction. Whatever is said, the same monotonous noise replies, and quivers up and down the walls until it is absorbed into the roof. "Boum" is the sound as far as the human alphabet can express it, or 'bou-oum' or 'ou-boum'- - utterly dull. Hope, politeness, the blowing of a nose, the squeak of a boot, all pronounce 'boum.' (144)
With time and reflection the event transforms from an unpleasant and disturbing experience to a horrifying one:
The crush and the smells she could forget, but the echo began in some indescribable way to undermine her hold on life. Coming at a moment when she chanced to be fatigued, it had managed to murder: 'Pathos, piety, courage - - they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has value.' If one had spoken vileness in that place, or quoted lofty poetry, the comment would have been the same - - 'ou-boum' . . . no one could romanticize the Marabar, because it robbed infinity and eternity of their vastness, the only quality that accommodates them to mankind. (146)
Some scholars, such as Gertrude M. White, suggest that the "voice of chaos" appealed to Mrs. Moore in the Cave, and the evil of such an ancient and godless universe created her terror.6 Although explanations of this kind seem to satisfy a number of the characteristics of her vision, and correspond well with Forster's reminder that the Marabar Hills date to a time "before all spirit, " it is clear that they are an inadequate attempt to describe Mrs. Moore's experience. They do not explain the very peculiar way in which the woman reacts. She is not abstractly terrified, since her horror has a precise genesis in the devaluation of all things that she cherishes, such as Christianity. Mrs. Moore's behaviour is more characteristic of a person who has come to a distressing realization than a person who has been shown something frightening. No doubt coming face to face with evil and chaos would awake something within the core of one's being, but the emotion that is stimulated within Mrs. Moore is a very specific and very decided one, rather than a general fear and depression. It would follow that some more specified agent than evil produced this emotion. Certainly, evil and chaos cannot be ruled out as components of the voice of the Marabar, but there are undoubtedly more elements to Mrs. Moore's experience than this. The issue must be explored more deeply.
Others, including Frederik C. Crews, have pointed out that the caves reflect back only that which is brought to them.7 Adela does not have nearly the same experience as Mrs. Moore, since she enters her cave as a different person and in a different frame of mind. An echo cannot form in and of itself, and always has a point of origin. However, even if the echo is a reflection of what Mrs. Moore brought into the cave, something unexplained must have transformed her voice substantially before it was returned unrecognizable to her. The cave, at least in this instance, echoed back much more than was brought to it, or perhaps transformed and distorted what was brought to it. If we believe that Mrs. Moore did enter the space in the ideal frame of mind to have such an experience, we must still recognize that before her vision she exhibits no tendencies towards the nihilism and detachedness that follows. Her faith in Christianity seems genuine and solid, and though occasionally frustrated by Ronny she cares about her son. It is not likely that something emanating from this woman alone should demonstrate a face that is alien to everything she stands for. This is not to say that the personality of Mrs. Moore and the attitude she brought to the caves did not play a part in her vision, but there are certainly more elements to the event than this. Scholars who seize on the fact that Mrs. Moore was "fatigued" when she had her vision, or that Mrs. Moore is an older woman, while failing to consider that her vision is antithetical to her basic character, could perhaps be accused of overemphasizing the significance of rather weak evidence in an attempt to prove their thesis.
The idea that Mrs. Moore encountered a completely external source of evil is problematic because of the specific manner in which she reacts to this force, emerging from the cave having formed a theory of the overarching nature of the universe. If some evil entity has spoken to her, she has embodied it rather than simply reacting to the voice. There is clearly a degree of collaboration on Mrs. Moore's part, since she accepts the message of the echo without any apparent resistance. The viewpoint that the echo came from completely within her, and the walls of the cave simply reflected back her own concerns and anxieties, is troublesome when we consider the extraordinary gulf between the character of Mrs. Moore prior to and following her experience. It is hard to believe that she is even the same person after her vision, so it is therefore difficult to accept that the source of this change was entirely internal. Of course, most critics do not claim to be certain of the exact nature of Mrs. Moore's experience, since there are clearly multiple ways of interpreting the event, and even Forster himself has proven reticent and ambiguous about the matter.
There is a third option that can be considered, in which the internal and external, the Self and not-Self, intermingle to produce a vision that is both personalized and drawn from exterior forces. Specifically, Mrs. Moore may have had a Hindu revelation. This option has not been overlooked by any means, with numerous critics commenting on the possible Hindu implications of Mrs. Moore's vision. The Englishwoman is convinced after her experience that everything is identical, courage and filth existing on the same plane. Understandably, this has been interpreted to mean that she has achieved the Hindu goal of merging the atman and Brahman, and thereby recognizing the oneness that underlies all things. In the potent phrase "Everything exists, nothing has value," critics such as Frederik Crews have identified the "annihilation of value" which he thought to be the highest experience of Hinduism.8 There are severe shortcomings to this popular way of assessing Mrs. Moore's experience. For one, it is not fair to claim that recognizing a oneness that underlies everything is to eliminate all worth. This is indeed one way of viewing the situation, but it could as easily be argued that acknowledging this unity attributes value to everything rather than annihilating value in everything. Rather than fearing that courage may lose its value, it is possible to look forward to filth gaining value it did not possess before. Of course, this rhetoric does not really change the true meaning of this experience, but it does significantly affect our perception of a religion whether we think its goal is annihilation or affirmation. In purporting that Hinduism seeks to annihilate all value, critics have imposed their own negative value judgment on the religion, perhaps assuming that the devastating effect that the echo has on Mrs. Moore represents the destructive and reductive qualities of the Hindu religion as a whole.
As is the situation with most of the significant phrases in the novel, there are two methods of reading "everything exists, nothing has value." It could quite plausibly be argued that this phrase acknowledges the value of the quality of "nothing." Likewise, when Aziz tells us that "Nothing embraces the whole of India, nothing" (142), this could be taken to mean that a oneness of the entity "nothing" unifies India, rather than the more limiting way of reading of the line which denies that India possesses any unifying factor whatsoever. In Hinduism itself, the words "everything" and "nothing" are nearly interchangeable, yet as Philippa Moody points out there is a world of difference between these two concepts to Europeans.9 Perhaps this can explain the destructive effects of Mrs. Moore's vision; although we may perceive her evaluative assessment to acknowledge the value of "nothing," she clearly cannot see things in this manner, losing all interest in the world because everything has become worthless. If Mrs. Moore has had a Hindu vision, it is an empty one, since she recognizes only the negation of the event rather than its affirmation. Her experience is lacking a fundamental opposing, balancing factor, and therefore leaves her empty. She has truly received an "echo" of Hinduism, which like the echo of a human voice lacks that humanizing element which gives it fullness and meaning. There is something eerie and sinister about the way an echo can rob a voice of its individuality and warmth. Similarly, without both aspects of affirmation and negation present to provide balance, Hinduism is distorted and frightening.
Om can be considered one of the most important, sacred, and all-encompassing of the Hindu symbols, representing Brahman. 10 The echo in the cave, we are told, indiscriminately causes everything to make a sound approximating "ou-boum." The similarities between these two words are striking, and have been noted by some critics. However, the contrasts evident between them are even more suggestive. Om as a word sounds complete, round, and solid, which is entirely appropriate to its meaning. "Ou-boum," on the other hand, resonates in an empty and unfulfilling way. It is as if the symbol Om has been thrown against a wall and come back debased, hesitant, vacuous. This is what everything sounds like to Mrs. Moore after her experience; she understands a oneness of the void rather than a comforting oneness of substance.
Further explanations in the novel of the bleakness of Mrs. Moore's new world-view grow increasingly more horrifying:
She had come to that state where the horror of the universe and its smallness are both visible at the same time - - the twilight of the double vision in which so many elderly people are involved. (193)What had spoken to her in that scoured-out cavity of the granite? What dwelt in the first of the caves? Something very old and very small. Before time, it was before space also. Something snub-nosed, incapable of generosity - the undying worm itself. Since hearing its voice, she had not entertained one large thought . . ..(194)
As a completion to her misery and despair, Mrs. Moore departs knowing that the vision which utterly destroyed her life cannot even be seen as representative of the truth:
The feet of the horses moved her on, and presently the boat sailed and thousands of cocoanut palms appeared all round the anchorage and climbed the hills to wave her farewell. 'So you thought an echo was India; you took the Marabar Caves as final?' they laughed. 'What have we in common with them, or they with Asirgarh? Goodbye! (195)
That her absolute devastation is the result of a lie is the final indignity, and shortly afterwards we hear of Mrs. Moore's death, presumably caused by her inability to exist anymore in a world that has become barren and meaningless.
This desolation and misery is not Hinduism, and to call it so is to do the religion an injustice. In the final section of the novel ("Temple"), containing a Hindu festival, we receive an example of the redemptive and positive function of the religion which stands in stark contrast to Mrs. Moore's version. The assembled crowd reaches a near ecstatic state in the recognition that 'God si love': "Infinite Love took upon itself the form of Shri Krishna, and saved the world. All sorrow was annihilated, not only for Indians, but for foreigners, birds, caves, railways, and the stars; all became joy; all laughter; there had never been disease nor doubt, misunderstanding, cruelty, fear" (260). This opposing interpretation of Hinduism overpowers and replaces the devastating perversion encountered by Mrs. Moore.
Although Mrs. Moore's experience clearly reflects aspects of Hindu thought, she cannot be said to have had a genuine Hindu insight. What Mrs. Moore encountered was an "antivision" 11 rather than the true thing. According to Professor Godpole's assessment, Good and Evil are indeed one. Mrs. Moore, however, perceives only that everything is worthless, and this negative, unbalanced assessment affects her precisely as would a perception that everything is Evil. This is a recognition of a oneness that underlies everything, but it is not representative of the oneness that underlies everything. To understand that oneness, it is necessary to balance Evil with Good, the annihilation of value with the affirmation of value. Mrs. Moore has grasped an incomplete and devastating version of Hinduism, a distorted and hollow echo of the religion. Perhaps this misinterpretation can be attributed to her Englishness, which renders her unable to ever fully understand that which is Indian. Or perhaps some ancient, evil force did lurk in the Marabar Caves, which disfigured the truth into a hideous lie. This question can never be decisively answered, leaving every reader with the responsibility of forming his or her own vision of the "undying worm." This imaginative challenge repositions A Passage to India as an enigmatic and ultimately insoluble problem, and has thus captured the interest of critics and readers alike.
NOTES
1. Clarke, 126.
2. Clarke, 133.
3. Zimmer, 338-49.
4. Kermode, 220.
5. Kermode, 361.
6. White, 143.
7. Crews, 180.
8. Crews, 179.
9. Moody, 37.
10. Deussen, 116.
11. Crews, 178.
WORKS CITED
Bradbury, Malcolm, ed. E.M. Forester: A Passage to India. London: Macmillan, 1970.
Clarke, Peter B., ed. The World's Religions: Understanding the Living Faiths. London: Reader's Digest, 1993.
Crews, Frederick C. "A Passage to India." Bradbury, 165-85.
Deussen, Paul. The Philosophy of the Upanishads. Trans. Rev. A.S. Geden. New York: Dover, 1966.
Forester, E.M. A Passage to India. Ed. Oliver Stallybrass. London: Penguin, 1979.
Kermode, Frank. "The One and Orderly Product." Bradbury, 216-23.
Moody, Phillipa. A Critical Commentary on E.M.Forester's 'A Passage to India'. London: Macmillan, 1968.
White, Gertrude M. "A Passage to India: Analysis and Revaluation." Bradbury, 132-53.
Zimmer, Heinrich. Philosophies of India. Bollingen Series XXVI. Ed. Joseph Campbell. New Jersey: Princeton UP, 1969.