Waves of Thought: Dante Meets Indra's Net
Divine Comedy merges in the Atharva Veda
Waves of Thought: Dante Meets Indra's Net - AI Image by Author (Microsoft Designer)
Reading Michele Diomede's take on the Divine Comedy, I stumbled upon a striking bit. In Paradise Canto XIV, Diomede paints a scene where Dante likens the words of Thomas Aquinas and Beatrice to ripples in a water bowl. This image sparked a thought about Indra's Net in Hindu lore, and I began to ponder the odd links between these far-flung ideas.
Michele Diomede - Divina Commedia - Interpretazione in prosa - Paradiso
Diomede writes:
“L’acqua contenuta in un recipiente tondo si muove a cerchi concentrici dal centro alle pareti del recipiente medesimo o da queste parenti al centro, a seconda se il recipiente viene percosso dall’esterno o dall’interno. Mi venne in mente questo fenomeno fisico, causa la somiglianza tra il discorso pervenutomi dall’anima del sapiente Tommaso d’Aquino e quello che, subito dopo, rivolse alle corone dei beati la mia Beatrice. Infatti le parole del dottore angelico erano pervenute dal cerchio dei sapienti al centro del quale mi trovavo con la donna mia.”
My translation:
"The water in a round vessel moves in concentric circles from the centre to the walls of the same vessel or from these walls to the centre, depending on whether the vessel is struck from the outside or the inside. This physical phenomenon came to mind due to the similarity between the speech that came to me from the soul of the wise Thomas Aquinas and the one that, immediately afterwards, my Beatrice addressed to the crowns of the blessed. Indeed, the words of the angelic doctor had come from the circle of wise men at the centre of which I found myself with my lady."
This paints a vivid picture of motion and links. The words of Aquinas and Beatrice are like waves spreading through the ring of blessed souls, making a flow of wisdom that moves to and fro. It's as if each word and idea sends out ripples that touch and change everything around it.
Indra's Net
Mulling this over, I couldn't help but think of Indra's Net, a key idea in Hindu thought. This view sees the world as a web of ties and mutual links among all things, where each bit shows and is tied to the whole. It's a way of seeing the world where nothing stands alone, where each thing affects and is affected by all else.
Indra's Net, born in the old Atharva Veda text, is a lovely way to show this idea. I see it as a vast cosmic web, spun by the great god Shakra or Indra, stretching on and on with no end. At each crossing of the net sits a bright, many-sided gem. These gems remind me of the "blessed souls" Diomede talks about, each a shining light in Dante's heaven. But they're more than just pretty baubles - they're like living mirrors, each reflecting and being reflected by all the others.
Indra's Net - AI Video by Author (Luma Dream Machine)
Reflections
The coolest thing about Indra's Net is how each gem mirrors all the others. When I peer into one of these gems, I see all the rest, and in those reflections, I see yet more, on and on forever. This makes me think of how Aquinas and Beatrice's words bounce and echo through the ring of blessed souls, weaving an endless web of meanings and ties. It's like each word, each thought, contains within it the whole of wisdom, just waiting to be unfolded.
Just as waves in water move from middle to edge and back, Hindu thought speaks of a steady flow between the small and the vast, between what we see and what truly is. This calls to mind how, in Diomede's scene, the wise words move from the center (where Dante and Beatrice stand) to the edge (the ring of blessed souls), making a non-stop stream of insight. It's a dance of ideas, where each move ripples out to affect the whole.
Same truth
What grabs me is how these ideas, born so far apart in time and place, seem to point to the same truth. Both Dante and Hindu sages hint at a deep link at the core of all things, a basic oneness that goes beyond what looks separate. It's as if, despite the miles and years between them, they're tuning into the same cosmic broadcast.
This meeting of minds also brings to mind new physics ideas. Things like quantum entanglement and action at a distance seem to echo, in science-speak, what Dante and Hindu thinkers sensed. The notion that tiny bits can link up instantly, no matter how far apart, rings of the same tune as Indra's Net and Dante's water ripples. It's like the universe itself is whispering its secrets in different tongues - poetry, myth, and math - all saying the same thing.
Entanglement
Take quantum entanglement, for instance. It's the weird fact that two particles can be so linked that changing one instantly changes the other, even if they're galaxies apart. Doesn't that sound a lot like the gems in Indra's Net, each reflecting and affecting all the others? Or like Dante's ripples, where a word spoken in one place moves souls far away?
Thinking about these links, I can't help but be in awe of how deep and wide these insights go. From Dante's Italy to ancient India to today's physics labs, we see a shared view of a deeply linked world, where each part holds and shows the whole. It's like we're all working on different parts of the same giant puzzle, each piece revealing a bit more of the big picture.
And…so?
These thoughts fill me with wonder and a sense of unity. They make me value even more the wealth of human ideas and the beauty of different ways of thinking which, like the gems in Indra's Net, mirror and light up each other, painting a fuller picture of our shared being. It's a reminder that wisdom doesn't belong to just one time or place - it's a shared heritage, a common thread that runs through all of human thought.
In the end, whether we're reading Dante, pondering Hindu wisdom, or puzzling over quantum physics, we're all dipping into the same vast ocean of truth. Each tradition, each thinker, each discovery is like a wave on that ocean, unique in its form but part of the same great whole. And just like the ripples in Dante's bowl or the reflections in Indra's Net, each of our thoughts and actions sends out waves that touch shores we may never see. It's a beautiful, interconnected dance, and we're all part of it.
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